Shadowed Fate
by Maiafay
Summary: Emily Kaldwin is dead, and The Isles are on the brink of civil war. Hiding from his guilt and shunning the Outsider, Corvo Attano serves the Duke of Serkonos as his "shadow" - but when the Duke is assassinated, and Daud implicated, Corvo is taken prisoner by a new High Overseer, and a mysterious High Oracle - who gives Corvo a horrifying and impossible task: destroy the Outsider.
1. Eve Of War

**Warnings:** Adult, slash, dark, canon-typical violence, torture, dubious consent, AU (as the worse ending of the game is "canon").

**Main Pairings:** Corvo/Daud, Corvo/Outsider, Corvo/OC, implied Corvo/Jessamine

**AN: **After the fall of Dunwall, the Empire survived, but the chaos has affected all corners of The Isles. This new world is hostile, unforgiving, and teetering on the brink of destruction. But in the darkness, hope flickers, and leads a chosen few on a journey that will decide their fate, and the fate of their world.

* * *

** Shadowed Fate**

-:-:-

A reckoning had begun.

Tonight, Corvo Attano would break the first link in the great chain that bound Serkonos to the Abbey of the Everyman. The scroll in his inner breast pocket, sealed by Duke Gerald Armas, said one command that would ignite a civil war across the Isles: _Leave none alive._

Floor by floor, room by room, he purged the Karnaca Abbey of its corruption: Overseers and Oracles. Guards and servants. The Fugue Feast reveries had dulled the senses of the Overseers, most still snoring off wine, entangled in the arms of whores or their sister Oracles. Before the dawn of the new year, many passed into the Void without stirring from their slumber.

He contended with a few stragglers here and there, those who hadn't participated in the festivities for whatever their reasons: a servant cleaning the privies, an Overseer studying in the archives. And a young Oracle, eyes like new grass, chestnut curls peeking from beneath her gray wimple. She had turned and smiled at him before he cut her throat, a soft, knowing smile that said:_ I forgive you._

Her body disintegrated into ash in his arms, but the smell of lavender seemed to follow him wherever he went. His hands wouldn't stop trembling. He sought the Heart's counsel, the warmth of her in his hand, metal and flesh and spirit woven as one. He squeezed her gently, and an otherworldly sound stirred in his mind, rising and falling and sharp like wind pushed through a reed. Then she spoke, her voice a lulling echo over the wind.

_"They steal the young ones from the dunes: boys with dark eyes and pale skin. Girls who collect bony trinkets from the shoreline. They never past the tests. Many call for their mothers as they die. Their bodies are burned with no markers to remember their names."_

Jessamine's spirit knew his doubts, and knew what to say to ease them. His breathing steadied, and his heart hardened. The Overseers and the Outsider had pushed him to this. Both formed two sides of a rotted coin that bought only misery and fear. It was time to cast that coin into the sea. No more butchery. No more false gods holding The Isles hostage. If it took war to free them, then so be it.

He paused in the darkened hall. Moonlight glinted on his blade, tainted orange by a nearby window of stained glass. Upon its etched surface a war raged against the Void: holy flames and starlight battled a lithe figure of a man wreathed in the darkness. Black eyes — intent and indifferent on glass as they were in the Void — seemed to burn into his back as he escaped into the cellar, his heart a frantic thing clawing at his ribs.

Did his defiance anger The Outsider? Did it amuse him? Did The Outsider even care? Five years had passed without contact. Without visiting a single shrine. Without dreaming of the Void and its chaotic wonders. Only the Mark remained, useful for now, but someday he would sever that too — literally, if he must. The Outsider's leash couldn't hold him forever.

The cellar spanned beneath the entire Abbey, and according to the Duke's spies, under the gardens and the graveyard. Rumors suggested that some tunnels went as far as the coastline. No map or blueprints, but navigating blind didn't deter him from going deeper underground.

Shadows lightened and sounds sharpened. Iridescent rat eyes shone in the dark. And though Void energy simmered under his skin and throbbed through his veins, he didn't use it. Spirit Remedies had all but disappeared under the embargo of New Dunwall's puppet Emperor, Renard Constantine. The Abbey had declared it heresy to create, sell, or buy the remedy due to its suspected "occult" ties. And with Piero Joplin presumed dead in Dunwall, the original recipe had died with him — leading to several "tweaked" versions of the remedy sold on the Black Market. No one in their right mind touched that stuff, let alone paid the insane amount of coin for it. Good old-fashioned mana regeneration suited him fine, but the trick was conservation and restraint. Last resort only. He had suffered enough throes of mana exhaustion to resist of Gazing through walls and Transversing all over Serkonos for the hell of it.

He ventured through a dark maze of rooms and halls full of crates, barrels, and piles of dusty, broken electrical equipment. The sour scent of fermented cider mingled with the earthy damp of the stone walls. The hall to the right yielded two entries to an ancient moldering library. No guards or Overseers. And still no sign of his main target. High Overseer Alexander Fairchild should have been in his office, or in his chambers enjoying the last hours of sinful delights. Both yielded nothing except an ill-fated Overseer rummaging through Fairchild's undergarment drawer.

After a climb down a metal stairwell in dire need of maintenance, he came upon a crumbling archway and a long corridor draped in glowing violet moss. Eerie and beautiful, and it brought the image of the Outsider's sculpted face, that patronizing tilt of his head, and the playful mockery in his voice.

Why was this demon haunting his thoughts now? He gritted his teeth and sucked in his breath until his chest ached. And then he exhaled, slow, steady. Moss...only moss. That black-eyed fuck needed to get out of his head and back into the Void where he belonged. Too many empty halls down here, and ever since the stairs, he had the odd sense of being followed. Every glance behind proved him foolish, but anything could be around the next corner. Overseers, Fairchild. His gut and his brain agreed for once. Something felt wrong.

Laughter echoed from somewhere past the moss and wet stone. Two males, maybe more. Void energy surged, but he forced it to heel and crept forward, keeping close to the wall.

The corridor split at the end. He followed the voices down the left hall and then ducked behind a stack of crates. Two Warfare Overseers stood vigilant next to a black iron door. Their white festival masks faced his direction, but they continued their muttered conversation without pause. The element of surprise still belonged to him, but not luck. Besides those ugly metal masks, the Holger devices strapped to the chests of both Warfares negated his crossbow and pistol - not to mention the consequences should those devices start turning. His nightly lullaby of Overseer music may keep the Outsider away — and give him a bit of resistance to the negative effects — but more than one device still posed a threat. Unless he wanted to collapse the corridor - and potentially the Abbey itself - with a grenade, he would have to get creative. And creative meant magic. Even if it did pain him to dig into his mana reserves and give the Outsider another piece of his soul.

The Mark glowed through his gloves, a warm, brilliant orange that belayed the icy flow of energy that seemed to rise from some dark place inside him. His ears rang and his skin tingled. His trousers tightened to the point of discomfort. This force had been easier to resist back in Dunwall - its seductive thrill, less poignant. _Why reign it in?_ said a whisper in his mind. _There's plenty of mana to spare. Let it free._

The world went gray and the Warfares froze in mid-gesture, trapped in time as insects in amber. To them, he must have appeared as a demon hurling out of the shadows with unnatural speed, dirty black longcoat billowing behind him. Once that coat had been royal blue with golden trim, but he had been a different person then, someone who would've winced at the way he plunged his sword through the neck of one obstacle, and speared the other through the eye of his mask. Brutal, efficient. He was what the Overseers made him. He was what the Outsider created.

His targets slumped in tandem, blood oozing through the holes in their masks, and fingers cramping around handles left unturned. Power hummed through his blood. The world once again changed, awash in rusted hues this time. Far beyond the door, the faint yellow light of two figures shimmered in his vision. One standing, the other seated. Fairchild and another Overseer? Another wanton Oracle? In the end, it made no difference. This room would be their tomb.

He gleaned a keyring from one of the dead Warfares. Oiled hinges eased his entry, and sparse lanterns aided his approach. A short hall led to a large room with circle of stone at the center blocking his view. The air smelled sour here, and unseen firelight bathed the far wall in red. Hooks and restraints hung from the ceiling, and several torture instruments lay strewn over carts and shelves. Black stains dotted the walls and floor, and in one corner, two piles of colorful rags.

Wait, not rags. Clothes. In particular, the native garb of the Dune Dwellers. In one pile, the odd ruffled skirts of the women, and the bright vests and trousers of the men. In the other pile, torn undergarments, and sandals with no straps. Above the clothes, broken seashell hairpins and pearled embellishments glittered from inside a squat, dirty jar on the wall shelf. Under that same shelf, a cloth doll stared at him with one button eye and a faded blue sundress, her arms hanging by frayed threads.

His sword shook. This is what he and the Duke had suspected all along. Too many from the shores had gone missing over the last several months. The Heart had said the truth.

He Gazed through the wall. The standing figure bent over the seated one and appeared to kiss the other on the head. Words of a solemn prayer drifted to him in fragments.

"_May the cosmos embrace you….free at last…Outsider's taint…stars will guide you now…suffer no more."_

The familiar baritone and crisp Tyvian accent revealed the standing figure as Alexander Fairchild. He moved closer, the glow of the Mark well hidden. The High Overseer stood in front of an interrogation chair, hands on his hips, head cocked as if in thought. Though the Hymn of Atonement was hours ago, Fairchild still wore his white ceremonial overcoat. At this angle, he had a full view of the poor boy trapped within restraints, age somewhere between ten and fourteen. The boy's chin rested on his bare chest, his short black hair dripping blood on the pale, bruised skin of his bony shoulders and torso. Delicate fingers curled in death over the arms of the chair, straps digging into frail wrists.

Fairchild clucked his tongue as if disheartened by the mess and released the restraints. The ceremonial coat gleamed in the firelight, and not one hair had strayed from the polished gray waves slicked back with whale grease. Unblemished and perfect, unlike his victim who tumbled out of the chair like a sack of broken sticks.

By the Void, he would have stuck then, but Fairchild straightened and turned toward him.

"Come out, assassin," said Fairchild with a smug sneer, his beady eyes narrowing. "My sister Oracle warned me that a demon would attack during the Fugue Feast, but stars bless her feeble mind, I did not take her seriously. Our dear sisters see demons everywhere, in everything. Yet, here you are, as foretold. I assume you used black magic to get past my Warfares. Spawn of the Outsider. You cannot harm me." Fairchild unsheathed his sword in one graceful move and assumed en garde. "Face me, witch."

Who was he to deny a dead man's last request? He sheathed his weapons and stepped into the light with a deep mocking bow. "As you command, High Overseer."

No gaping astonishment, or gasp of awe at his appearance. A little disappointing, but then again, everyone in Karnaca knew him either by rumor or myth. Only a few trusted souls knew him by truth.

"Ah, the Shadow of Armas." Fairchild squinted as if trying to see past the mask. "You are here at his behest?"

"You picked the wrong time to visit Serkonos, sir." He tossed the scroll on the floor. "Your orders of execution, and of all those who follow you."

Fairchild stared at the scroll as if it had just shat on his boots, and sputtered, "That fool has lost his mind! His entire court will be executed for high treason!"

"The Duke is willing to risk all of Serkonos to be free of the Abbey's yoke. It's been around our necks for too long."

Without changing his stance, Fairchild withdrew his pistol and cocked the hammer. "Have you been whispering in the Duke's ear, Shadow? Using your dark arts to manipulate and beguile the righteous? The people say you never speak because the Duke cut out your tongue. Perhaps I should give that rumor truth. The pretty lilt in your voice tells me you're a native of this island, but that nasal from the northern isles suggests some time abroad. Where do you hail from? Gristol or Morley?"

"Dunwall."

Fairchild's thick brows became one, then separated again. The pistol wavered. "You are Daud."

He started laughing. Not that it was funny, really, but the irony alone deserved a good chuckle. If only a certain someone had heard that proclamation — but no, that someone was too busy playing mystical guru to a bunch of street rats and thieves to be bothered with trivial matters such as war. Still, Daud's reaction would have been fun to watch, maybe even more entertaining than Fairchild puffing up his chest like an affronted crane and screeching with pious indignation.

"Filth! Vermin cannot mock the holy! They crawl on their bellies and gorge themselves on the dead! And you, Daud, you are the lowest creature, the most vile. You slither through the catacombs beneath this grand city and think the light cannot touch you. But it can. And it will. You will burn, witch. Like all your kind."

The rant itself didn't offend him. Every fanatic that followed the Abbey sang the same tired old tune, but now he had ruffled Fairchild's feathers well and good — and judging from the white-knuckled grip on the pistol — this old bird was ready to start shooting. A sleep dart would end the tantrum, but those things took forever to wear off. And executing a snoring target seemed…unsporting.

If the High Overseer wanted a witch, then he'd give him a witch.

Space warped around him and he Transversed. Fairchild shrieked at the sudden loss of his pistol and sword, and made a mud-crab scramble under the nearest workbench. In different circumstances, the sight of that white-clad, pompous rear smacking the bench as it wiggled underneath might have brought on another chuckle or two, but he didn't have the luxury of chasing this fool all night. One bullet, one arrow - that's all it would take. But would it be enough? That boy cooling on the floor deserved justice, as did every victim tortured and killed at Fairchild's elegant hands.

No, an example had to be made, a warning to all future High Overseers who thought they were above the law.

The wall behind the bench and the crates to either side prevented escape, boxing Fairchild inside a dark cubbyhole where the only thing visible were the whites of his wide, unblinking eyes. Not the brightest High Overseer in the Abbey was he? He aimed his pistol at the cringing lump in the shadows and said: "Out. Now."

The lump didn't move, but loosed a high-pitched cackling giggle before hissing one word: _"Witch,"_ and retreated further into the gloom_. _One of the crates started rocking, followed by unmistakable sounds of rummaging and labored breathing. Searching for a weapon? Bad, bad High Overseer.

The crate splintered with his first and last warning shot. The lump twitched with a yelp that dissolved into another disturbing titter. People reacted differently to seeing magic. Some shrugged it off, others panicked and ran. And some just broke down. Seemed the High Overseer belonged to the latter group, which wasn't surprising. The higher they were, the deeper they plunged. From the state of this torture chamber, and latest victim, Fairchild had been halfway there already. The baubles and trinkets inside those glass jars weren't there for storage, they were _souvenirs_, and those clothing piles had been sorted with care. One pile to burn, the other to…keep. Twisted son-of-a-bitch.

More shuffling under the bench, a flash of black boot, then a defiant shove of the crate he'd just shot. Crazy bastard, but smart. His target must have realized by now the reason he wasn't riddled with bullets or chewed on by summoned rats was because a worse fate had been planned. So now it was a stalling game, one he didn't have patience for. He hunkered down and gestured with the pistol. "I said out, High Overseer. Or I'll leave your corpse to rot where it falls so everyone will know how you cowered like a timid mudlark before I shot you."

When all else fails, insult their pride. The lump seemed to consider this proposal, and accept it with a hesitant shift forward. He backed up to give Fairchild more room, but something _plinked_ under the workbench, something metal, something familiar. Then that something rolled toward him in what seemed like slow motion. A canister, or —

Realization hit too late.

Grenade!

He threw himself to the side as it went off, but instead of his limbs flying in every direction, his lungs flooded with expanding chalk. Fire inside his eyes, in his throat, up his nose, burning and turning his tears to ash. Not a grenade. Chokedust.

His hands closed around an imaginary pistol. Magic surged so hard his skin prickled with icy heat. He Transversed into a table, knocking it over. Then a man-sized shadow charged at him through the cloud of smoke, screaming words that made no sense, and swinging something he should probably get away from. He Transversed again, but he was like a panicking bird flying in the wrong direction. His nose collided with the wall. Lights and black spots exploded behind his eyes.

He hit the floor.

Fairchild pounced on top of him, lips peeled back in a frozen snarl. Thick blood filled his throat, choking him from the inside as Fairchild's hands squeezed from the outside. Sword. He needed his sword. He pawed at his belt and at the vise closing off his air. Fuck, where was his sword? Bright specks of color popped and sparkled in his vision, edges going grayer and grayer, and all the while, Fairchild cackled in his face like the very thing he claimed to hate.

"Hah! Writhe, witch! Writhe and die! Your master won't save you. You are nothing to him - nothing!"

The hands around his throat now clutched the sides of his head. He managed one, desperate gasp before the back of his skull slammed into stone.

Fairchild and the room vanished. The pain numbed. The Void expanded around him, enveloped him in hues of twilight and mist. Fragments of reality hung in the airless space: leafless trees upside down, their roots above intertwined like vines. Rocks in the air turning in place. Slabs of cobblestone floated next to the skeletons of buildings. Chains linked these islands one to another, strung from impossible points and connecting to other places unseen. No sensation other than helpless abeyance. Under his floating feet, a vortex churned, bottomless and forever. His soul mirrored the chaos below him.

How would he atone for Emily's death? How would he find peace?

_"You wouldn't, Corvo,"_ The Outsider's melodic voice seized him from within and balanced him between life and oblivion. _"You will wander the Void like so many others of your kind. Lost souls forever seeking what is just out of reach. Such a shame for you to die like this, Corvo. And at the hands of a man who takes great pleasure inflicting pain on others - on you in particular. Nothing fills Alexander Fairchild with more desire than killing a witch."_

The Void receded like a rolling white wave. He returned to the throbbing ache of his skull, and a nose that felt ten times the size of his face. The weight of his mask lifted away, but the weight on his eyes stayed. In the dark, someone said his name like a whispered question, and then that same someone giggled in husky delight.

Hands probed between his thighs, the breath in his ears coming faster and heavier.

"Hanging by a thread, I see. Good. Let me send you into the Void with a _special_ parting gift."

His eyes flew open. A howling gale rose from nowhere and everywhere and blasted the _offensive _thing on top of him to the other side of the chamber. The brassy clang of impact shivered through the hairs of his ears. The tempest raged around him a moment more, then calmed and disappeared.

He coughed and sputtered for several minutes, every broken, swollen part of him lurching in agony. Then he flopped over and vomited the bloody remains of his evening meal. So much for that roasted whale fillet and fig pastry.

He slid himself up into a kneeling position and swayed there like a drunken snake, the room spinning in sideways loops. It could spin and spin all it wanted. If he tried stopping it, he might throw up again. Somewhere in the dim recesses of the room, Fairchild moaned as if having a bad dream. The bastard and his groping hands. He should cut them off, and then cut off something else.

The clasps on his belt pouches suddenly seemed like complex mechanisms. Which one had he put the elixir in? Of course, in the last pocket he ended up checking. He drank the vial's contents in three painful gulps. Not much for taste, but it cooled his throat and soothed his splitting skull. And maybe by tomorrow, the bridge of his nose would have straightened itself.

Another moan from the corner, and louder. Even in the state of unconsciousness, the High Overseer demanded attention. Wrenched nobleman.

It took another minute or so to stagger to his feet, but once he was up, he stayed up. Sokolov's Elixir had done its magic.

He found Fairchild in a heap by the furnace with a perfect imprint of the furnace shield branded on the once pristine white coat. If that shield had been open, it would have spared him the extra effort — and would have been poetic in its own right. And still, it wasn't too late for a bullet to the head, or an arrow to the heart — but no, those hands had been on him. And that panting in his ears. All those children…had it been enough to keep their possessions as trophies? Or had they endured those same hands? He had a feeling the answer was yes.

He yanked Fairchild up by the hair and threw him next to the boy's corpse. Some rope kept his stirring captive — who now stared at the dead boy with dazed, horrified eyes — from attempting another swan dive under a table. And wadded underwear from the "keep" clothing pile kept the ranting at bay. A more permanent solution to that little problem lay twinkling in the firelight, but required a few more tools to make it work.

A brief search through the chamber yielded everything he needed: a small clamp, more rope, and a neck strap. And the apothecary cabinet produced the final ingredient: a vial of bright yellow venom gleaned from a deep sea hagfish. Nasty stuff. Killed within minutes, but those minutes would be long and agonizing.

He set the wooden table upright and fetched the twinkling tool from the floor. A heretic's fork. Overseers attached these to confessed "witches" by a strap around the neck: one pronged end digging under the chin, the other into the base of the throat. Then the poor soul was hoisted up like a piece of meat, deprived of food and sleep while gravity became the unwitting torturer. The device itself didn't cause death, but a good soak in hagfish venom would.

He checked his time piece. Almost dawn. Every moment spent here made it more difficult to slip away later. The first day of the Month of Earth called the righteous home to atone and begin anew - and all Oracles and Overseers who survived the Grand Guard's attack in the capital would be fleeing here for safety and the guidance of their venerable leader. But death waited for them beyond the main doors by spring razor traps placed in strategic locations. And the unlucky few who escaped those would be hunted and executed, one by one.

_Leave none alive_.

He unclenched his fists from the shaking heretic's fork. The boy's corpse shimmered in the firelight like a memory from the Void, a ghost of itself. Unreal. And the squirming simpering thing next to it, a reminder of everything wrong in this world.

The lower prongs he left alone, but the upper pair received two drops of venom each. More than enough. Steel turned black, and Fairchild started screaming through his gag.

And the screaming continued until a certain small clamp caught hold of that offending tongue, and a heated blade did the rest.

"_I'm disappointed, Corvo. It's like you've gone out of your way to be brutal."_

"Shut up, boatman," he said to the memory of Samuel's judgment, to the pain of being abandoned by a man he'd considered a friend. "I owe you nothing."

But the stubborn spirit refused to be cast out. _"You used to have honor."_

"I said, shut up!" He hauled Fairchild — who hadn't once ceased his miserable keening — over to the pulley and stripped that ridiculous jacket off him. One more item for the burn pile. "You deserve this, and you deserve more — all of you! Liars and hypocrites, burning so-called heretics, torturing innocent people and children! And for what? Power? Order? You don't even know!"

He pressed the heretic's fork under Fairchild's quivering chin, not breaking flesh, but stopping that incessant noise, and letting whoever might be watching with such _avid _interest to hear what he had to say. "It's just a game, isn't it? The Outsider versus the Overseers. The bastard probably made you out of boredom, and now he can't control you. So it's up to the Marked to do his dirty work, to keep this world from falling into the Void because of your damned war!"

The other end of the fork bit deep into the hollow of Fairchild's throat, giving the poisoned end more wiggle room. Plenty of nostril flaring and clenching teeth, but no howling. Finally, some dignity from the bastard - or maybe just fear of what would happen should that mouth open a scant wider than the fork allowed. He adjusted the strap and clasped it one notch tighter than comfortable. Then he secured the pulley hook between the High Overseer's bound, knobby wrists.

The pulley squealed and its cargo rose like a stiff, dead fish, neck straining, and arms lifting over his head.

"Yes, hold that head high, Alexander. Shouldn't be difficult for you. All those years lifting your nose at the lesser born, thinking you're better, thinking you can do whatever you want to them. Well this is it, High Overseer. This is what you've been practicing for." He anchored the rope around the iron ring on the wall and brought over a chair to stand on — but he didn't stand on it yet. One last detail remained. He retrieved his mask from the floor. Blood from the bent metal frame smeared his gloves. Ruined, but the Duke's blacksmith would make another. None of them like the first, of course. No one in the Empire could match Piero's skill and artistry, but the substitutes did well enough to intimidate his targets and conceal his identity.

The chair creaked under his weight, but held. A blank, glassy stare met his, but then gazed past him, pupils widening, seeing something beyond the shadowed corners of the room. Fairchild shuddered then, a rippling movement that traveled from head to toe, and would have killed him had the poisoned fork been a hairbreadth higher.

"Do you see the Void?"

Fairchild swallowed, tears leaking free again. He set the mask as gently on that weathered and stricken face as he had with his first on Emily's grave. He stroked the mask's leather cheek and leaned close, whispering like a lover. "I hope the Void feasts on your soul. I hope it tears it to shreds, and then spews what's left back here to relive your moment of death over, and over, and over again — for all eternity. And then, maybe then, that might be penance enough for all the suffering you've caused."

He smiled at the loathing radiating deep within the eyeholes of the mask, from every taut muscle and strangled noise that fought its way free of Fairchild's convulsing throat. "Oh, and say hello to the Outsider for me."

Death could come in an hour, or after he closed the door — it didn't matter either way. Mission complete. Target terminated.

He left the boy propped against the wall, a witness to his murderer's final moments. It seemed fitting.

In the hall leading back to the Abbey, he glanced at his time piece again. Dawn. First day of the Month of Earth. Happy New Year, Serkonos.

And then came a bout of uneasiness.

No going back now.

* * *

In three weeks, chapter 2. Corvo runs into some...trouble when leaving the Abbey, but receives some unexpected (and unwanted) assistance.


	2. The Morning After

They ambushed him in the courtyard.

The Warfares had hidden behind the high rows of hedges blooming with spicy-scented fire roses, a scent he'd stopped to appreciate on his way to the Abbey's main gates. After the stench of that torture chamber, the fragrant clash of apple and pepper cleared his head, and for a moment, the world and his dark deeds faded away.

Then a rustle of leaves, and a creak of something metal. He recoiled from the hedge, but not fast enough. The first wave of music hit him full force.

He pulled out his crossbow and staggered as his magic fled. A second wave of wailing noise joined the first and his shot went wide. And then another device began to play. And another. And another. A legion of Warfares and their boxes of torment.

The cacophonous roar of their music sent him screaming to the ground.

Then nothing. No sensation. No sound. He sank into a darkness even the Void and its master could not penetrate. Fathomless and empty and eternal. A descent without end, falling out of himself, out of —

Someone slapped him.

White light speared his eyes and straight into his skull. A high-pitched whine went on and on, deafening all else. He groaned and the darkness beckoned again. Not a yawning pit of despair this time, but solace and escape from the —

Another blow knocked the thought right out of his head. Then a rough shake rattled his teeth. Distorted words pierced through the whine, and seemed spoken from the end of a long tunnel: _"Wake up, witch."_

He slivered his eyes open. Rows of golden masks blurred around him. Uniforms formed a gray wall that moved and shifted, sunlight stabbing between the gaps. Something cold and wet soaked the knees of his trousers, the air sweetly spiced with apples and warming grass. Still in the courtyard, and kneeling. Hands bound behind him by scratchy rope. The tension around his neck increased, and then slackened. Someone had a hold of his hood, keeping him upright. Coat pockets felt lighter, probably empty —

The fog in his mind dissipated in an instant. The Heart…the Overseers were ignorant of what, and_ who_ she was. All they would see is a tool of the Outsider. They would lock her away in some vault or try to destroy her. He had to find her — and the rest of his gear, his weapons. None of this attack made sense. How had so many Warfares escaped the Grand Guard?

"Corvo Attano, look at me."

The hand on his hood yanked, forcing his head up. The gray wall shifted to allow a tall, crimson splotch of color through. Dawn haloed the newcomer's face, obscuring his features. His apparel marked him as higher rank, but who besides the High Overseer could command the Warfares? The newcomer came closer, broad shoulders blocking the sun — and on one of those shoulders, the insignia of the man he'd strung up no more than an hour ago._ No, impossible__…_

"Did I miss the Feast of Painted Kettles?" His voice cracked on the word _kettles._ As if affronted, the hand on his hood yanked again. He coughed against the constriction around his throat, the world going misty.

"Enough of that, Brother Matthew. He's not your hound." Aristocratic in speech, but with a touch of Morley rasp, a suggestion of lesser pedigree. The newcomer's face matched his voice: angular jaw darkened by a shadow of a beard, and a slightly heavier thatch of hair on his upper lip. A pensive drawn mouth above a sharp chin, and faint worry lines across his forehead. Thin wire spectacles gave the newcomer a scholarly air, and lessened the harsher features of his face. Gray streaked the dark sable of his hair and gathered in full force at his temples, the hair there not long enough for a comb or oil, but the crown long enough for the wind to toss.

Behind his spectacles, the newcomer's tawny eyes scrutinized, and not with Fairchild's maddened glint, but with a focused, keen intelligence. "The Ascending Circle chose me a week before The Fugue Feast," The newcomer said with a smile that managed to be both apologetic and predatory. "And sadly, no Dance of Investiture. It was all very hush hush and hasty — a formality, really. Even in subterfuge the elders keep with tradition. It's one of their more endearing qualities."

"I doubt Fairchild would agree," he said, sounding as dazed as he felt. _Another_ High Overseer? And chosen before the Fugue Feast. The timing was too coincidental to be an internal power struggle. The Palace was only a few miles from the Abbey. By motor carriage it was a mere hour away. An entire clergy lay dead by his hand alone. If the Warfares had caught the Grand Guard by surprise, it would have been a blood bath. By the Void, he better be wrong.

"Fairchild never knew," said the High Overseer with a rueful sigh. "His temperament was as volatile as whale oil and just as caustic. He didn't have friends in the Order. He didn't have friends in the Empire. The public detested him and half of his personal guard wanted to kill him. The elders threatened the Heretic's Brand if he didn't follow their every whim — if he didn't tour a certain country of an openly discontented Duke. If he didn't remain there during the Fugue Feast with but a handful of Warfares to protect him. Such a tragedy, what happened on the eve of the New Year. Assassinated by the Shadow of Armas. Poor Fairchild. So unlucky."

Fairchild wasn't the only unlucky one. "What's the point of the Heretic's Brand if you people don't use it?" He tested his bindings. Subtle turns of his wrists: first left, then right. Let's see how closely Brother Matthew was paying attention back there.

"Yes, I supposed it would have been easier," the High Overseer admitted with a wry laugh, and clasped his gloved hands behind his back. "But would a brand stop a man who sees black eyes and pale skin in every child, who uses his idle, _filthy_ hands to cleanse these innocent souls?" Those eyes snared his again and didn't let go. "I think not. Your blade ended his depravity, Corvo, and I cannot express my gratitude enough."

In his mind, the Oracle's face shone soft and lambent. Then her radiant smile:_ I forgive you_. His conscience squirmed under that phantom smile. "And the others I killed here, do you thank me for them?"

That fierce stare released him and softened over the chapel walls, over the flowering ivy of yellow and white blossoms, and over the long red banners bearing the moon and trident symbols of their Order. The High Overseer spoke, somber and reflective, the Morley rasp less pronounced: "The Cosmos calls home both young and old. Sometimes without warning, sometimes without cause. This is a mystery that has confounded us since the First Age, and will continue confound us until the Void claims all."

"Save your sermon, High Overseer, it's wasted on me."

"Is it?" the High Overseer said in that same solemn tone. "When I searched your quarters in the Palace, and all your hiding places and secret rooms, I found no shrine to that creature."

His wrists jerked so hard that one of the ropes drew blood. The warm flow of it trickled over his fingers. He waited for more information, some gloating barb or boast that would reveal the fate of the House of Armas, but nothing came. The High Overseer plucked a fire rose from a nearby hedge — his gloves giving protection from its stinging thorns — and circled it under his nose, breathing deeply. He waited, the magic in his blood yearning for release and tension knotting his shoulders. Clustered in five groups of four around the courtyard, the Warfares shifted like a herd of nervous horses — and under their gloves, a white-knuckled grip on every Holger Device. The fire rose continued to twirl with deliberate slowness.

So they were going to play this game.

"I don't worship what I don't love," he said. He'd never tried unleashing the magic with his hands bound before. This wasn't the best time to experiment, but he had to try something.

"Did he anger you in some way? Find favor in another?"

"He doesn't play favorites, so he says." He berated himself for that last part and said, "I know what you're doing, High Overseer, and it won't work."

"I'm merely indulging my curiosity. I've never caught a witch like you before."

"Who says you caught me?"

The rose stopped twirling and the unblinking scrutiny returned. "Then fly away, little crow. Or summon vermin. Or possess one of my men. Go on, I'll allow you one chance to escape. It's only fair as I have so many, and you are but one, defenseless heretic."

If he had his blade, he would have plunged it into the High Overseer's forehead. But he plastered a tight, sporting smile on his face and said: "If you want to see magic so badly, why not play in the Echoing Catacombs? Daud loves surprise visits from the Abbey."

"Yes, we know all about Daud and his barbaric cult. They may have changed their name and their attire, but they are the same scourge from Old Dunwall. What we don't know is the specifics of his connection to you. Where you met and when, and your relationship to him."

"Estranged acquaintances. And that's being generous."

"Good to know, yes, a relief actually." The High Overseer resumed his appraisal of the rose and said, "Because I'd hate to think the Duke's assassination would come between _close friends_."

His hands stilled, fingertips dripping. He didn't move. Or speak. The shadow of Brother Matthew fell over him, but he didn't acknowledge it. "You lie," he whispered when the blood in his ears stopped pounding.

The pitying look he got in return confirmed otherwise. "But why?" he said, unable to reconcile the possibility of the Duke being dead, or of Daud's supposed involvement. "Why would Daud even bother?" His mind reeled at the possibilities — each one more improbable than the last. Daud cared for two things: himself and his people. He hadn't agreed with the rebellion, but he hadn't condemned it either, saying: "if it stayed out of his caves" then Armas and his "Shadow" could do as they pleased. The Duke had never invaded the catacombs, preferring to give "the strangeness that dwelt there" its well-deserved space. And true to his word, Daud hadn't killed for coin since his self-imposed exile — though over the past year, planning for the coup had taken precedence over babysitting an ex-assassin. But in all fairness, he had no right to judge — and had no reason to believe this High Overseer's pile of oxshit.

"So…Daud left the comfort of his lair to assassinate the Duke for no apparent reason. And then what? He decided to take out the entire Grand Guard all by himself?" He went to work on the ropes again, clenching his jaw against the renewed pain. But no cries of alarm rose from the shadow over him, and no jerks of his hooded chain - which meant Brother Matthew's attention lay elsewhere, likely on his new leader's lazy, strolling approach, rose still in hand, spectacles reflecting the pastel morning sky.

"Daud's Wraiths disposed of most the Grand Guard," said the High Overseer, sounding grave and saddened by what he had supposedly witnessed. "Quite the slaughter. Blood all over those exquisite marbled floors. They never stood a chance — and how could they? Wraith Crust armor and painted skin. Even my travels to Pandyssia hadn't prepared me for the savagery of their attack. Like chameleons they were, disappearing in plain sight with naught but a shimmer and a corpse in their stead."

"Yet…you and your Warfares survived. How convenient. All your twinkling lights in heaven must have aligned just right. Or, your men were the ones doing the slaughtering." Steel in his voice, in his eyes, and around his wrists, a sodden gap. Almost free. The magic pressed under his skin, more than ready.

The fire rose dropped to the ground, and the High Overseer knelt in front of him as if swearing fealty: one knee up, and his right arm thrown over the top. Again that gaze pinned him in place, dulled by glass and wire, but no less unnerving in its intensity. If his eyes were truly windows to his soul, the High Overseer seemed intent on flinging them wide and pillaging what he found inside. No secrets here, no lies. Only one other could unravel him like this, and he was somewhere in the Void, watching Forever with his black empty stare.

"Armas was many things. Hot-headed, belligerent, hostile in Parliament, and he blamed the Empire and Abbey for letting his eldest son bleed out in Old Dunwall's streets. But he didn't deserve to be gutted like a hagfish in front of his lovely wife as she wept and begged for Daud not to kill her beloved. And then their son, that poor child —"

"What about Roberto?" He tensed, bracing himself, vowing not to lose control of his already bristling temper. The Duke's remaining heir, age the same as Emily five years ago, and intelligent like her, always with a question on his lips, always smiling, and always finding things to laugh at. He had kept his distance from the boy for fear of spreading whatever taint he carried, the dark aura that had eroded Emily's innocence and led to her corruption…and death.

The High Overseer paused as if deciding which lie would be the most tragic, but when he spoke, the halting gentleness to his voice swept away any doubt of his sincerity. "The boy is dead, Corvo. By accident, as I believe they never meant to harm the child. He ran from them, slipped…and the balcony had been damaged. It…was very high."

The air left his lungs, his eyes prickling with sudden heat. The magic responded without his call, welling up and flowing through him like a wild, rushing current. The Mark flared so bright the grass on that side shone gold. Brother Matthew shouted and his shadow leapt away. The singing rasp of many drawn blades sent a flock of nesting kingsparrows into panicked flight.

But it was Overseer music that dealt the killing blow to his magic and his fury. He doubled over, the world awash in red and torment until the High Overseer barked a command, and the boxes went silent.

Wet grass stuck to his face as he panted into the ground, the sweet pungent scent of dirt giving him some measure of comfort. Then his hood once again jerked up and his head went lolling along. But it wasn't Brother Matthew's fingers knotting in his hair, or twisting his face toward an equal expression of disgust and ire.

"You see now what chaos that creature creates?" The Morley accent thickened the High Overseer's voice, each word seeming to scrape its way out. "What his followers will do in his name? Doubt my intentions, and doubt the Abbey's desire for peace, but never doubt the Empire's strength to resist the darkness that besieges her now. The Outsider will not have Serkonos; he will not divide us further. The Duchess still lives, but for how long? How can the Abbey insure her safety when heretics rule this city? When the demon that murdered her husband roams the streets, free to do as he wishes — "

"No, I believe about the boy, but the Duke…no, not Daud — it was you. The Abbey somehow found out, someone told — "

"Yes, we have spies everywhere, and in the least likely of places. It's how we found you. And remember what I said about friends, little crow? Daud is not one of them. Nor am I — My orders come with the Duchess's blessing. And as you can imagine, she isn't in a forgiving mood."

By some unspoken command, the knots around his wrists fell away, cut by the same blade that now pressed under his chin, keeping him motionless while someone else — Brother Matthew perhaps — grasped the hand that bore the Mark by the bloody wrist.

"He was almost free," Brother Matthew said, accusing, and gripped him tighter as if imagining he could somehow still flee.

The dagger at his throat tilted slightly, stinging as it drew blood. "What should I do with you, little crow?" the High Overseer mused. "By right I should execute you for the murders of countless innocents — not only here, but for every soul you've sent into the Void since that creature claimed you. Blood for blood. Your head on a spike or your body burned at the stake. I wonder though, would it be justice, or a wasted opportunity? You have no love for that creature, no devotion. Why he chose you is a puzzle most intriguing, and what intrigues me…stays alive." To the Warfares he said, "Play."

And then the blade at his throat plunged into the center of the Mark.

He cried out in surprise more than pain, already half-swooning from the siphoning pull of the music. The flash of steel meeting enchanted flesh seared his vision in gold. He fell to his side, cradling his wounded hand against his chest. A terrible throbbing beneath the Mark, veins and bone squirming, pulsating, and seething with the wet-stone grinding song of the Outsider's runes. No one else seemed to hear it because the Warfares kept playing on and on. In mercy, the whispers of the Void drowned the music out, a susurrus he had heard only once before when he'd misjudged a ledge during a Transversal back in Old Dunwall. In that rocky niche between John Clavering Boulevard and Bottle Street, he had laid on the rain-soaked pavement, paralyzed, wind knocked out of him, and his head full of the same admonishing choir of whispers.

The music stopped. But the ringing didn't. And his hand and his head kept hurting. As if being courteous, the whispers faded enough for the High Overseer to say: "Don't worry, Corvo, your benefactor may not be present in the flesh — if he indeed has flesh — but he aids you regardless. Look at your hand."

He didn't have to look. Sometime between the last warbling note of the music boxes and the final sigh of the Void, the flesh on his hand had healed itself, the Mark whole again, and glowing as if anticipating further harm. Magic gathered like mud in his veins, crawling rather than surging. A realization then, of what this clever bastard had done — and must have done before to some other Marked one. How else could he have known the wound had sucked his mana reserves dry?

He retreated into himself, took stock. Wait, not all the mana was gone. One benefit of relying on his own mana regeneration was a deeper well to draw from. Some remained, a shallow pool barely enough to Transverse over to the opened hedge gate several feet beyond the closest Warfare.

Brother Matthew nudged him to his knees, hood once again pulled taut. If he had the strength enough to Transverse, Brother Matthew was coming along for the ride.

"You see? Completely healed." The High Overseer cleaned his dagger with a brown-stained rag and returned the blade to its sheath. Then in an oddly civil gesture, offered the rag to him and said, "By your expression, I assume you've never tried to cut the Mark away, or damage it. No, I expect not. The lure of power is too great - even if you didn't ask for it."

"I never told you I didn't ask for it." He took the rag without gratitude, adding fresh stains to old ones, then tossed it away. It landed on the High Overseer's boot where it stayed until a skinny Warfare unattached to a Holger device snatched it up and folded it into a neat, tiny square before stuffing it into his coat pocket, and resuming his rigid position.

"You never told me otherwise," the High Overseer said and strolled three paces forward, planting himself in front of the hedge gate, right smack in the middle of his line of sight. The bastard.

"Another assumption then? Careful, High Overseer, the dangers of assuming are vast." The beige whale fountain against a short masonry wall, trickling a steady stream of water from the hairline crack running under its basin, hid the pathway he had taken when entering this part of the courtyard. Two groups of five Warfares stood on either side. Not an option. A Transversal there and he'd have to run back to the Abbey, and toward more Warfares that may or may not be inside. And he bet there were plenty inside.

"A little red dove tells me your secrets."

That got his attention. It was obvious baiting, but impossible to ignore. Duchess Katrina Armas had never worn red. She called it "vulgar" and favored the lighter shades like creams and sage. And no female of the Duke's court even knew his real name, let alone his encounter with the Outsider. Then for some absurd reason, Esma Boyle to mind, and her snug, red velvet petticoat over the pants that accented her "finest posterior in all of Dunwall" — an attribute Sokolov had not exaggerated. He'd shared the brief privilege of its company only once, the soft swell of it bouncing in his peripheral vision as he'd carried her unconscious form to the cellar, and into the embrace of Lord Brisby. But Esma Boyle had known nothing of her mysterious party guest, aside from him being dashing and beguiling enough to fall for his deception.

No, this red dove was not Lady Boyle — who was Void knows where now in The Isles.

"Outsider have your tongue, Corvo?" said the High Overseer, sounding amused, though his eyes narrowed behind his spectacles.

He suppressed a sigh, thinking of a young life lying broken on a blood-spattered floor. "Does this dove have a name?" The rest of the Warfares were scattered among the larger groups, spaced so he couldn't get past without one snagging him or getting in the way. For one Transversal and then running until his mana regenerated, and somehow gaining enough distance before the music boxes of doom began their symphony — required precision. Transversing over a hedge might work. Then again, if he landed in the middle of a patch of fire roses, the burning thorns would do the Warfares job for them.

"I'll give her the honor of introducing herself. She's quite eager to meet you."

"Are we waiting for her?"

"No, we're waiting for Fairchild's head. I trust you left it attached?"

He stared at the High Overseer, once again stunned into silence. Who _was _this bastard?

_He is Tarquin Hawk. Gifted, clever. At age seven they chose him. He still dreams of his father_ _'s screams. And the stench of burning flesh lingers long after he wakes. _

His breath caught at the sound of her voice. The Heart, speaking from…somewhere. He scanned the courtyard and the Warfares for a hint of her location while the High Overseer (Tarquin Hawk?) pontificated with an airy gesture toward the fluttering banners of the Abbey:

"I don't doubt your abilities, Corvo. But one has to be certain. Can't have two of us running about, can we?"

_In Pandyssia, Tarquin saw all manner of creatures. Birds with tail feathers the length of his arm. Insects the size of his palm. And giant winged serpents flying in the distance. How he marveled at them! _

She sounded breathier than normal, as if winded. Still couldn't pinpoint her location, but the whistling wind of her mechanical gears tuned out whatever Hawk said next.

_But none he loved more than the great cat, coat all the colors of autumn and night. Teeth the length of a blood ox tusk. Its eyes, feral and wise and so bright! The color of new gold._

"Corvo? Are you well? You've gone an interesting shade of sallow."

"Shut up. Where is she?"

A small frown in response to his rudeness, and pressed lips, canted head. "I told you, you'll meet her soon."

"Not your fucking dove. The Heart, what was in my belt pouch. Where did you put her?"

Understanding now, the little "ah hah" light shining in Tarquin Hawk's eyes. He smiled, but not with pleasure. "That abomination we found, yes. It is safe."

"Give her back. She's not a weapon, and she better be whole, damn you, or I will — "

"What? Kill me? Torture me? Little crow, you're in no position to threaten." And as if to emphasize his leader's point, Brother Matthew tugged his hood hard enough to cut off his air again. He jerked forward, unbalancing his irritating guard and sending him stumbling against his back. A jangling began from the nearest box, but Hawk raised his hand. "No, don't bother. I want to know how he knows we haven't destroyed it."

"A little clockwork dove told me," he said. "Better go find her before she tells me all your secrets."

Hawk didn't seem to care for being the victim of his own baiting game. And by his stiffening posture and rather cagey glance toward the stone pathway that sloped down the hill past the hedge gate, it seemed Hawk had also forgotten how to play. So that's where he needed to go. Thank you, Mr. High Overseer sir, for being predictable.

_He sees the cat in you. Wild. Powerful. And a weapon. He longs to break your spirit. To turn you against_ _…no…Let me be! Please, Corvo…her hands…" _

She never had addressed him by name before. And he had never heard that frightened trill in her voice, not even when she had been dying in his arms.

He stood up, knocking Brother Matthew back and creating a wave of reactions that ranged from shouts to swords and pistols aiming at various parts of his anatomy. Boxes seemed hesitant, their owners looking to the High Overseer for guidance, but Hawk stared ahead, a statue in the face of an oncoming storm, the rippling flap of his long military coat the only movement.

"So you're taking my offer after all. Remember, Corvo. One chance. Make it count."

"You'd be dead before your men blinked. Don't you care about that?" It was either Hawk or the hedge gate. Jessamine needed him, but this High Overseer needed to die. Did this idiot really think he could control him? One leash, however slack, was enough. He would not be a slave to the Overseers.

"You won't kill me."

"You sound so damn confident. And why is that? You have a bone charm against death?"

"I have better. I have…_her_."

Up the stone path, multiple footsteps clicking and clacking in their military march. Everyone in the courtyard turned, and when the new arrivals entered his line of sight, the Warfares, High Overseer and the panicking Brother Matthew behind him ceased to exist.

Dressed in the same dark gray as their brothers, but wearing golden masks more suited for feminine faces, two Oracles brushed aside the fire roses and pivoted to allow a third Oracle, clad in crimson and black, passage into the courtyard. A dainty figure, and no taller than the hedges around her. This third wore a black mask instead of gold, and instead of a blank facade, a saddened one with closed eyes and the mouth frozen in the act of sobbing. Tears of gold on each cheek, and outlining the symbols on her forehead. Her wimple flowed as the rest of her, overskirt swaying as she came forward. She held his eyes not with her own, but with what she carried in her hands.

_So much light. I cannot bear it. I am blind. I am_ _…burning! No more, please…Corvo, help me! _

The Heart.

He Transversed and grabbed the bitch by the throat, expecting her to drop Jessamine in reflex, but her fingers laced even tighter around her prize — and though the mask hid her face, he knew she was smiling.

Something stuck the back of his knees, sending a shot of hot agony up his thigh. He buckled and rolled, but the same weapon slammed into his back. Muscles spasmed and tore. The music added another level of misery, piercing his mind and emptying him of thought. The weapon _thunked_ in front of his face. Multiple gleaming points and smooth black metal. A mace. Its sleek form turned in place as if displaying itself to him, then lifted again.

He closed his eyes and sighed. So it would be like this, then. If the Cosmos was real, and if it accepted him, he would find them again. Jessamine and Emily, they would have an eternity to forgive him.

"Cease. He stays alive." An emotionless, soft command.

"High Oracle, the witch should be executed!" The Oracle sounded quite dismayed she couldn't bash in his skull.

"No…he should be revered."

No one said a word. Tension chilled the heated air, the confusion almost physical enough to touch.

_Arella Agar, High Oracle. She saw herself smothered by her father's hand, and drowned by her mother's. She poisoned them both. The Abbey found her after._

Small hands pushed him onto his ruined back, and a black mask peered down at him. Then she removed it, handing it to the Oracle by her side. Young, no more than twenty. Round fair face and fairer skin. Eyebrows, elegant and arched, and the color of ripened strawberries. Her hair would be the same color. All that red…

_"A little red dove tells me your secrets."_

The High Oracle bent low, a chain bearing the Abbey's trident swinging inches above his lips. She ran her fingers through his hair, consoling him as if he were a child, her eyes staring at something in the distance. "I've been waiting for you. We all have. Waiting for the stars to speak your name…Corvo Attano. You will end the darkness." Her eyes, colorless, but not blind, drifted from whatever dream she gazed upon and found his own.

Looking into them was like looking into glass, and beyond the glass, all manner of horrors.

"You will destroy the Outsider."


	3. Bitter Symphony

If it hadn't been for the chains, he would have killed himself the first night.

The music never ended. Outside his cell, two Holger devices cranked without hands, courtesy of new toggling technology from Sokolov—who, in whatever dank hole in Tyvia the former Royal Physician now cowered in—never seemed to tire of inventing new ways of inflicting misery. This particular novelty enabled his torturers could go about their business while he suffered—chained to the wall by his wrists and neck—an unending cycle of weakness, tremors, and a pulsing ache that had made itself at home behind his right eye.

Reprieve came three times a day—three random, precious intervals where his wounds would heal a little more and his mind would clear and the magic would always come slinking back like a kicked hound, growling and weary and resentful of its mistreatment. These reprieves were his meals, lavish by prison standards and indulgent by common folk: fresh baked bread, spicy pilaf and fish—sometimes a pastry or fruit if whoever prepared these decadent marvels felt so inclined. Fine food, Hawk had said when attempting to feed him through a music box serenade, deserves to be in the stomach, not on the floor.

So after that unfortunate incident, he ate in blissful silence, and with the lethargy of an elderly man, drawing out the moments bite by deliberate bite. And Hawk would pace outside his cell as if strolling along a scenic path instead through one of the murky halls of the Palace dungeon, his lips caught in a strange half-smile, and his gaze fixed on the past. Every so often, those eyes would settle on him and look _through_ him, seeing some other creature in chains—this great Pandyssian cat who had killed half of Hawk's hunting party when it had escaped. Hawk would relay this tale many times, and with the awe of a child, how magnificent it was in its wrath, how graceful its savagery as it tore his men apart. If Hawk could capture it again, he would bring it back to The Isles—even if it meant feeding it every one of his men to keep it alive.

But it was gone forever, Hawk had said during one impassioned retelling, grasping the bars and peering through with all the intensity of his namesake. And its ghost still haunted him. It stalked him in his dreams, its eyes, brilliant and yellow and ravenous. The shade of it followed him everywhere in the waking world. But often he would catch a glimmer of it in the eyes of his foes—heretics and witches, the infamous Marked. A feral intelligence, a force of nature that challenged Hawk to tame it, to break it—_"And yes, little crow,"_ he had whispered. _"Anything can be broken. No matter how defiant. No matter how resilient. But breaking doesn't mean slavery or defeat. It means surrendering to a higher cause. A higher purpose — a righteous purpose._

And this righteous purpose would present itself when the last crumb disappeared from his plate, when the water jug emptied and his chamber pot filled, and when he resumed his seated position on the floor and the lever came down, his chains raising and the wall met his sweating back with a jarring thud—the same offer would come. _"Help us, Corvo,"_ Hawk would say with that quiet, fervent passion of his that lulled more each time. _"Who better to hunt the hunter of men, than one like himself? Help us find Daud. Avenge your Duke. Avenge the suffering the Outsider has brought upon you, and Serkonos. Help us destroy them both."_

Each time, his refusals grew weaker and slower, and the delight in Hawk's eyes flared brighter. And the music would play again, ceaseless, excruciating, and that barbed nest behind his right eye would throb, burrowing deeper into the meat of his skull.

And there were no lulls in this shrieking crescendo, no moment when he could stop digging his heels in the dirt floor or unclench his jaw or open his eyes — because the blue haze of the music would creep inside him and rot whatever it touched. His eyes would turn to jelly in their sockets, his tongue turning to ash in his mouth, and those ashes burning their way down his throat to his organs, dissolving them one by one by one, until there was nothing left but nothing, and Outsider help him...please help him—because those barbs behind his right eye were now slithering into his left and tunneling into his ears, thorns piercing and burning and burning...please—_please_, if he could just get off one cuff. Just one. He could rip the thorns out before they did any more damage. Rip them out. Rip them out before—No, too late...too deep. Burrowing, _chewing_, eating him alive piece by piece. Please, just turn it off. _Turn it off!_

And the music stopped.

He groaned like a beaten animal and slumped forward with a sob, muscles twitching, his sanity coming back in layers of awareness. The cool dirt against the smalls of his feet. The balmy air wafting through the tiny slot of a window high behind him, the pungent floral scent of the Palace gardens nudging his head up and his eyes cracking open. The blue haze was gone and so, thankfully, the need to plunge his thumbs into his eye sockets. No more barbed nest tunneling into his skull. No more prayers to an uncaring deity. The green tinge of the moon, typical for the Month of Earth, cast a watery pall over the walls and floor, making his cell glow like the holds of a sunken ship. Unlit and unseen hanging lamps swayed, metal frames creaking. Then a shadow moved at his cell door, slim and small. Not Hawk.

This shadow reached a slender arm toward a section of wall he couldn't see, and a whale oil lamp burst into hazy, golden life.

"Arella," he said, losing half her name in the dry tunnel of his throat.

Gone was the prim uniform of the High Oracle. She wore a shift of sea silk, a gauzy material the color of cream and with a lace neckline cut low, the hem stopping at mid-thigh and revealing the legs of a dancer, strong and toned and so white they appeared luminescent. She carried a wide-mouthed ceramic jug etched with blue canna lilies and a matching towel thrown over her shoulder. Her hair seemed to celebrate its freedom from the wimple as it cascaded to her waist in a torrential waterfall of dark auburn curls.

She waited outside his cell with the intent, it seemed, to give him time to collect himself. And he needed it. The music had been worse this time around, his resistance no longer as effective as before. Yes, when it played, he always wanted to die, but never had he wanted to pluck his own eyes out, or scoop his brains out of his skull. He couldn't even pass out from exhaustion - as tended to happen during the lengthier stretches. It was wearing him down, and with a sudden alarming speed that portended his eventual madness. How many sessions could he endure before he stopped recovering? How many sessions before his magic left him altogether? The Mark on his hand stayed dark. Dead. Not even a thread of power in his veins.

_It will come back, it always does. Don't worry. Don't give in. It'll come. Be patient, it'll come._

While he was encouraging himself, Arella moved toward a Holger device and raised her arm as if to turn it on. The mantra in his head shut up and he tensed, not breathing, not blinking, a fearful shout of NO! rising like bile in his mouth. But he didn't say it. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction.

She cocked her head, one red tendril of hair falling over her nose. "Does pride keep you from begging, or does fear?"

"You're the Oracle...you tell me." He all but hissed the words, glaring at her attire, at the way her shift became transparent when the light hit it just right. Why would Hawk allow her to run around like that? Why was she alone and without escort?

"It is neither." She entered his cell and approached him without trepidation, red curls catching on the towel and then freeing themselves in impatient pendulum swings. "What keeps you silent is guilt, and shame, and hate — and not hate for us, but for yourself." She set the jug on the bench where he took his meals, and stood over him, staring down as if he was some new, fascinating thing she had discovered. "We are brother and sister in pain, Corvo, forged in violence and sorrow. It is all we know in this life, and so we seek suffering again and again, bearing it without complaint, like the rock that suffers the tide."

"Why are you here?" His voice not quite a whisper, and not quite steady. It was like she stripped him to his soul in the matter of seconds, a feat Hawk had yet to accomplish, and the High Overseer had been trying all week.

"Tarquin has seen to your stomach, but neglects your smell. This will remedy that."

And what else did she intend to remedy? "How...kind," he said and cleared his throat. She smelled of the ocean, of the brine in the air, and the waves cresting under the scorching heat of the summer sun. One could lose themselves in that scent. In all that hair tumbling over her back. And what would she smell like in other places? He had seen no outline of an undergarment. Nothing but smooth silk and teasing flesh beneath. He shifted his legs, hiding the interest building there. "If you leave the jug and lengthen the chains, I'll see to it myself."

"No, this task is mine." Her eyes caught the light and brought the images behind the glass again. That horror without form. Something lurked in this High Oracle, something that rivaled the darkness of the Outsider. The Overseers accepted the Oracles' powers of foresight as divine. But most of their reverent sisters needed a helping hand of narcotics to "see" the future. True clairvoyance…that was rare. And suspect. Arella's abilities didn't originate from some sacred constellation or benevolent star cloud. That darkness behind her eyes was the Void saying hello. And wherever the Void appeared, the Outsider wasn't far behind. But was she his? Or was she bound to something else?

She bent over and dipped the washrag, the valley of her breasts dark and inviting through the gap of her scalloped collar, the red curtain of her hair flowing over one white shoulder. Void or no Void, she made a tempting distraction. He licked his lips and said, "I doubt very much Hawk sent you here."

"He did not."

"I don't understand, sister...High Oracle—"

"Arella, as you called me before."

"Arella...you might want to have one of your sisters do this task. Where are they?"

"Outside the dungeon. It was our compromise." She wrung the washrag over the jug, giving it a firm shake, then started with his feet. He closed his eyes under her gentle touch, fighting to keep his breathing steady. Her voice washed over him in the same manner, lulling and low. "My visions are sacred and accepted as truth, but they don't trust your role in the days to come. It is unthinkable to them, a witch who will bring death to the one who gave him power. They don't want me to even see you. They believe you're tainted by the Void, and they are right. As they are right to fear you."

"I'm chained to the wall with a leg and backside one of them mangled," he said and shifted again when she rolled his pants to his knees. "Even if the chains dropped off and my magic returned full power, they have their maces and that damn noise. What's there to be afraid of?"

The hall outside his cell stayed empty, but for how long? If Arella's sister had any sense, they wouldn't be guarding the door—they would be bringing Hawk with all speed. And when Hawk took a gander at his precious High Oracle give their pet witch a sponge bath—well, it wasn't hard to guess what the punishment would be.

She patted his legs dry, the soles of his feet, and between his toes, taking care not to miss a single drop of moisture. "They fear anything they cannot predict," she said. "My sisters lie to themselves. They think they see the future, but they see dreams and smoke. If they had a fraction of my sight, one moment in my place—if they saw what I see every time I close my eyes or look into the eyes of another, they would go mad."

"Like that Horncroft woman?"

"Yes, dear Gwen. So many futures piled high in her mind, like tea cups on a plate. So many to balance, and eventually they fell...and they shattered."

"But somehow, this hasn't happened to you."

She smiled and wrung the washrag again, water cascading over his forearm—and splashing onto the bodice of her shift. "You and I, we're already broken. Already insane. It's why they chain us to walls or put masks on our faces. We terrify them."

"You're not in chains, High Oracle." The words left his mouth without thought, and his mind shrank from his lack of tact. Her soft rebuke brought heat to his face.

"All because you can't see my chains, doesn't mean I don't wear them...and please, it's Arella. My name is not my station."

"I apologize...Arella. And, you're right. I suppose we're monsters in our own way. But monsters are killed by those who fear them. So why are we still here?"

"Because killing us would be kind, and the Void is not kind."

"Cruelty belongs to the world, not the Void. The Void doesn't betray or lie."

"Yet you blame the one who walks there all the same." She studied the Mark with the tip of her finger, the washrag like a glove. Her palm pressed to his, steadying his hand in the chain cuffs as the other explored. Slow, gentle circles and dripping water. The lower part of him began to stir again, his breath catching, then quickening. She mesmerized him with the motions, the care she took in tracing the veins in his hands, in his wrists. Her breasts rose and fell, the sodden material leaving nothing to his imagination.

He jerked his eyes away, blood rushing in his ears and other places. Maybe Hawk did send her. Maybe this was some ploy to win him over—a torture of a different sort and one beguiling enough to succeed. But she would not undo him so easily. He was not some besotted Overseer or servant boy enthralled by her power or beauty. Arella had made him her enemy the moment she took what mattered to him most.

"I know this game," he said. "But why not send one of your underlings to seduce me? If not your sisters, then a servant girl." He didn't look at her as she washed under his collar and around his ears, her breasts pressing into his ribs.

"And the next morning we'd be burning a corpse. Even the lowest of us despise you. And if you could be swayed by such a simple thing as lust, I would have had you the moment Tarquin turned his back, but you are not a beast, Corvo. And I am not your adversary." She swept aside the wet tangles of his hair, an intimate touch that brought another face into his thoughts. Dark waves replaced red curls, and blue eyes replaced gray. An unpleasant tug of guilt then, and the same damn regret. If he had been faster that day, more vigilant. She'd still be alive, and he wouldn't be chained to the wall with this strange creature on top of him.

"You want to be friends, Arella? Then bring me Jessamine. She doesn't belong to you."

"Oh, but she never was yours, not even when she was alive."

He flinched under her hand, chains clanking. "You know nothing about—"

"How you loved her?" Arella said, her eyes pulling him in, drowning him. All the hairs on his body stiffened along with the rest of him as the washrag began a slow decent from his neck down to his bare torso, past his navel, where she abandoned it to slide her hand under the waistline of his thin cotton pants. She then cupped that part of him that had been neglected for too long—that part of him that hardened even more at her touch, defenseless against it. "The first time you made love to her," she said into his ear, "you both hid behind masks. But you knew her scent, her body, her name on your lips and forever seared in your heart. A secret you kept even when the child was born—but you knew that everyone knew—and that emboldened you. You stole moments in the hallway, in her chambers, in the gardens—but she was careful after Emily. So careful not to let it go too far."

"You...you, can't know that. Did she tell you—the Heart?" He defied the angry twinge in his injuries, arching into that hot, dainty hand, and when she rolled her wrist—he was lost, her touch and her words igniting that long forgotten memory.

"Not the Heart, not Jessamine. But you…you are showing me, Corvo." She pressed against him, moving with his thrusts, her shift riding up, exposing her bare thighs and ass. An electric current seemed to hum over his skin, whispering through the raised hairs on his neck and chest. "I see everything. I see the past in all its glory. I see that night of the Fugue Feast, you and her entwined on her bed, on red sheets dampened with your sweat, your bodies glistening, moving with such grace and passion and abandonment. I'm between you now, and I feel your hearts beating so furiously, so frantically. Her cries in my ear, and your moans against my mouth. She and I milk every drop of seed from you, Corvo Attano, and leave you spent and dazed and aching for more. Yes...yes, like that," she breathed against his cheek. "Just like that."

He came with a convulsive cry, the Mark flaring white, his hips snapping up, his toes curling and heels digging into the cool dirt. The pleasure was a foreign thing after so much torment, and his body trembled, uncertain how to stop. But he did quiet under her unblinking stare, the electric current fading, the spasms receding and the heat leaving, and the emptiness taking its place, leaving him cold and aware of her hand still on him, cleaning him now with the washrag, stroking him with it as if to say _hush, I know, I know..._

And he hated her then. How she saw right through him, his hungers and his needs and his weaknesses. How she saw memories that belonged only to him and Jessamine—and even these thoughts running through his mind now, she knew somehow. Her smile told him so.

But still, he wanted her. If only for the heat between her legs and her body against his. That primal need she seemed to understand—and damn her, encourage. Milk every drop, oh yes, he would hold her to that. And much more.

But the music drove them apart.

His arousal and what little magic had come creeping back evaporated in a burst of chaotic sound. He winced, drew his knees to his chest and drove his head into the crook of his arm as if that taut, sweaty flesh could somehow lessen the onslaught bearing down on him. The jug toppled over and gray foamy water sloshed out, soaking his pants and making mud. Arella snarled a word the music snatched from the air, and departed in a rush of motion. His cell door slammed shut with a muted clang. More words exchanged in varying intensities, the throaty displeasure of Hawk unmistakable over the discordant choir.

Then, blessed relief as the music ceased.

He hissed a sigh and unfurled his body, noting the still-warm washrag plastered to his stomach. He grimaced and twisted until the evidence of his weakness flopped on the floor. Hawk and Arella traded verbal blows in front of his cell, their conversation coming to him in snatches between the ringing in his ears. His punishment depended on who won, and while Arella had pissed him off, she was his only chance at making Hawk compromise with these damn music boxes. He didn't want them turned off, but he didn't want them on either. He had another solution, one he had been waiting for the right time to suggest.

He scooted away from the mud as much as he could, and settled back into his usual sitting position—not that there was much room to deviate. The High Oracle and High Overseer continued to argue, their subject of disagreement…unexpected. Hawk had caught him with his pants down, literally, and witnessed the High Oracle doing things that would have sent their entire Order into a fit of rage. Yet, Hawk was complaining about…being disturbed?

"They were wailing at my door, rousing the entire Palace—my Warfares, the new Grand Guard recruits, even the blasted servants! Thank the Cosmos the Duchess was exhausted from the funeral, or she would have been squawking along with the rest of them." Barefoot, and in his nightly attire: a dark blue muslin tunic laced over his lean chest, and loose-fitting pants, Hawk had lost some of what made him imposing, but made up for it with the stony set of his jaw, and a glower so icy it could have frosted over his spectacles.

"You should have sent them on errand, made them patrol the gardens, or posted them outside the Duchess's chambers," Arella said, her chin raised and her body a rigid wire. Water dripped down the back of her thighs from a wet splotch high on her ass, a gift from the toppled water jug. "They would've followed your orders without question."

"For all your foresight, my dear, you don't seem to realize how difficult your sisters are making this transition. They barely obeyed when I ordered them to stay put. You don't seem to realize how close they were to charging down here with a riled-up squad of Warfares and Grand Guard at their backs. Your impatience could have cost us everything!"

"I didn't foresee interruption." Sullen, like a scolded child. "The stars told me—"

"That I would come? That we would be having this conversation? Because you seem surprised, my dear."

Point for Hawk, and another point for standing against a woman who could probably predict the exact moment and method of his demise. How would have Fairchild fared against a creature like this? Or Martin, or Campbell for that matter? They would have shrank away, no doubt, at the sight of the High Oracle balling her fists, power almost crackling around her. There was no evidence of this force, no starlight aura like the Outsider radiated. But even though he sat chained several feet from her, the hairs on his body rose again as they had when she had been cooing about Jessamine in his ear, but this was stronger. This was the warning hum of a Wall of Light not attuned to his flesh, when one step through in the wrong direction would disintegrate everything he was in an instant. The scent of ozone and ocean, then. A storm in full wrath and roiling waves beneath its gale.

The scent of the Void.

Closer to the danger, Hawk drew up to full height, but instead of retreating, he stepped toward that electricity buzzing around the High Oracle—drawn to it, it seemed, as he had been to that Pandyssian cat. It was Arella who took a step back, who curled her lip as if revolted by the sight of him or whatever she saw in his future.

"Your intrusion doesn't matter, nor am I afraid of their judgment." Arella's voice was a dull blade, but it drew blood all the same. "I wasn't _finished_. And I'm still not finished. If your men take so much as a step down those stairs without my consent, I will have them shot."

"I've already ordered them to avoid this area."

"Your orders are not enough. Their hate is stronger than their sense and they will try again. Tell them, Tarquin, you tell them what will happen if they disobey _me._"

"And your sisters? What of them?" Hawk said, his breath coming in soft, labored pants. In the lamplight, sweat glistened on the High Overseer's brow.

"I will discipline them. And then again. And then once more. After that…and after that, I think…I —" Arella's hand fluttered to her forehead and her gaze went someplace else, giving Hawk a moment to glance at the cell for the first time since he'd entered the dungeon. The look was indiscernible, falling somewhere between accusation and resignation. It was the look of someone who knew this was going to happen, who had tried to delay it as long as he could, but knew it would be impossible. All those stories told about Pandyssia, pacing back and forth, stealing glances toward the stairs leading up to the Palace cellars—then the strange absence of guards posted. No one checking in. He assumed they assumed the music would be enough to keep him docile, but no, Hawk was making sure if the High Oracle decided to visit, no one would witness her indulging in a guilty pleasure.

Until he played nice and agreed to this bizarre plan of killing the Outsider, he was still the villain, still the one the brothers and sisters wanted to burn or stick his head on a spike. And if they had caught her with her hand down his pants, they would have cried _blackmagic!_ and hauled him upstairs to do one of the two—and not even Hawk's authority or Arella's visions would have stopped that mob. It gave him a new understanding of the situation, but made it even more confusing. Somehow, his captors had also become his protectors.

When Arella came back from wherever Oracles go when divining the future, swaying and holding her forehead as if afraid something would spill out, most of her anger had deflated, and the buzzing energy had reduced itself to a low-level hum. Safe to approach, and Hawk reached her in two quick steps, gathering her in his arms, muffling the beginnings of a broken sob against his chest. Whatever Arella had seen, it had reduced her from a powerful Oracle to a distraught female who sniffled and said "they are dying" into Hawk's chest over and over again. Hawk stroked her hair and shot him a look over the crimson top of Arella's head, lips pressed and turned down, jaw working as if ready to say:_"See how this girl suffers? See what this power does to her? _

But he already knew. Whether you see the world through eyes that can gaze into the future, or watch a heart beat through walls, or study an enemy frozen in time before you plunge a blade into his neck, there was always a downside to power, the sense of wrongness when you wielded it, the allure of using it to solve all your problems. But he knew something else. No matter how hard Arella cried, or how much he regretted, they wouldn't surrender their power. It was theirs. A gift or curse, it was theirs, and without it, they would be without that advantage. They would be vulnerable. And in this world, the weak and defenseless are used and tossed aside. Those with power survived. Those with power ruled.

She lifted her head, then, wiping her eyes. That electric field hummed higher and Hawk moved an arms-length away. But she reached out and took a hold of his wrist, bringing him back into her embrace. Her arms wound around the High Overseer's neck and she brought her lips to his in a chaste kiss. Then she said, stroking Hawk's face as he had her hair, "Your way isn't working."

By the High Overseer's tired sigh and lack of anger, this seemed to be an old argument. "Patience my dear. You may see the destination, but you forget the journey. Our little crow will see reason soon. Give him some time."

"We have none."

"We have plenty. Everything is as it should be. The Duchess is ours. Karnaca is ours. Daud will be found soon and—"

"But what about the doors? The bleeding doors with teeth? And the Great Ones, their bones like mountains on the shores, death spilling from their blackened throats?" Arella stood on her tiptoes, pale calves knotted and straining. She had Hawk now by the strings of his tunic, the fabric bunching with every desperate tug, and Hawk staring down at her with a dim sort of amazement, as if her electrified aura had zapped him senseless. "We need to stop it before it begins. We need to make him understand! He can't run from this. He can't sail away or pretend it doesn't exist." She released Hawk who stumbled back, dazed, and she turned to the cell door. An unreasonable bolt of terror lanced through him at the sight of her glassy eyes. Something there, something dark. He tried backing up as she neared, forgetting the wall behind him. The lantern's glow cast her face in shadow and flame.

"No more hiding behind masks," she said. "Face what you are, and what you must do."

That hate came back, and he latched onto it, using it to shake off whatever magic she used against him. He stopped trying to disappear into the wall and leaned forward as far as the chains would allow. "I will face my own demons in my own time, and a little girl in a wet nightdress isn't going to tell me when. Fate isn't decided by the Cosmos or some black-eyed entity in the Void. It's decided by choices and actions—and consequences to those choices and actions. Like stealing something precious, something that once I escape, I'm going to tear through every Overseer and Oracle to reclaim." He relaxed with a smile that used to make the nobles in Jessamine's court quail in fear. "So both of you bear that in mind while you groom and fatten me up. I'll find a way out of this cage. And then I'll find my way to you. And if the Heart isn't exactly as I left her, no whispering star is going to save you, High Oracle. There'll be nothing left of you but a pretty smear on the wall."

Hawk opened his mouth—to probably launch into another tiresome paralleling tale of subduing his holy cat—but Arella silenced him with a raised hand. She pressed against the cell bars, her appraisal cold and feline, as if he was something she wanted to eat, but couldn't reach. Then came a sudden sense of _invasion,_ a prickling across the nape of his neck that had nothing to do with the collar around it. And then that dreamy look again in her eyes, and a devious smile twisting her lips. Without turning, she said to Hawk, "Tonight, leave the music off."

The implications of Arella's words didn't register at first. Then his gut dropped and kept dropping until it reached some invisible bottom where it balled itself into a gnarled, quivering thing. On the other side of the bars, Hawk mirrored the same emotion on his face saying, "But that creature will consort with him."

"Yes, and do you see the terror in our crow's eyes? The audiograph we found in his secret room makes sense now doesn't it, Tarquin? It wasn't to make himself resilient to our music, it was to keep the Void away —"

"It was to keep my dreams mine." Damn that childish waver in his voice. And damn her magic, whatever its source. The Overseers music was efficient for torturing witches, but not a witch they seemed to want sane and healthy. Hawk would have to turn it off eventually, and that would provide the perfect opportunity to "confess" his sins and ask for clemency. Then he would've requested his audiograph—and that might have tipped the scales in his favor, enough maybe to grant his freedom. But all his careful scheming had been ruined by this freak. This woman who reeked of Void, and was as unnatural as the Outsider himself.

As if sensing his thoughts, Arella caressed the bars, the gesture somehow more lewd than when her hand had been in his pants. "Your dreams will be his tonight," she said, her words on the verge of singsong. "It's been so long and he's so eager to reacquaint."

"If he frees me, you'll be waking up with my blade at your pretty throat—if I let you wake up at all."

"The Outsider will never free you. Not until you sever the bond of his magic to your soul." To Hawk she said: "Come…our flock needs reassurance and new posts, preferably far away from our bird's cage. And Duchess Katrina is having another nightmare. She requires my guidance."

"Wait! High Overseer, please don't let her do this," he said, grasping at whatever shred of camaraderie he and Hawk might have developed after enduring those endless fairy tales of Pandyssia. "I don't...want to see him."

"As much as it pains me to leave you at the mercy of that creature," Hawk said with genuine sympathy, re-lacing his tunic and tying a sloppy knot. "The High Oracle is right and wise to suggest this. Her visions are divine truth. If in her mind, she sees you chained and unharmed in the morning, then it will come to pass. It's a harsh lesson when we discover trusted friends are really enemies. But if you allow it, sworn enemies can be trusted friends. Think on it, Corvo. Ponder it with all your conscience. You have strayed, but you know our strictures. Perhaps recite a few of them to ease your fears, and to give you the strength to resist the temptations of the Void…and of its master. May the stars watch over you, Corvo. And goodnight."

"No, Hawk...Arella. This is a mistake!" Then, to their retreating backs: "Mudlark cunts…Void damn you both!"

They didn't reply. Hand in hand, the High Oracle and High Overseer left him to confront the silence alone.

The wall lamps flickered and dimmed. On some sort of timer, or maybe toggled like the Holger devices. He'd never noticed before because his world had been the music and meals. Music and Hawk. Music and Arella—when he'd seen her slender shadow outside his cell once or twice, never knowing if he'd imagined her presence or not. And now this quiet. This thick, velvet quiet that brought his magic purring back into his veins and luring him into a doze. A tiny band of moonlight from his cell window slanted on the bars of his cell. A bar of light on bars of steel. The color changed from white to a rich violet.

He jerked awake with a small cry. The lamps had been floating, hadn't they? The dirt under his toes felt wrong. Too soft and warm, like fine beach sand. Whale song drifted through his cell window, haunting and mournful, their lament for the end of the world. No, he was a fool. He didn't need the audiograph. It was like a pebble for luck, or a talisman to ward off evil spirits. Its power was in his head. The Outsider had lost interest long ago. Given up, maybe…hopefully. Probably found someone else by now to corrupt and ruin. No, he wasn't special anymore. Wasn't interesting. He'd be just like the other millions of souls that dream themselves into the Void sea, one of the millions floating by, unworthy of notice. Faceless and ordinary.

_Ordinary, Corvo? You are a beacon among these millions, worthy of my interest and undivided attention. And you have it now, as always. But someone else has been waiting anxiously for your return to the Void. Someone you had left for dead among the whale bones and sewage of Old Dunwall. Be careful, Corvo, she still bears a grudge._

The Outsider's voice seemed to come from the shadows under the bench, the wisps of smoke from the lamps outside, the beam of moonlight that had changed from the sickly green to a vibrant hue not quite purple and not quite blue. The Mark glowed as if pleased to hear its master's voice, even as its wearer resisted the pull of the Void, concentrating on the hard iron around his wrists, the collar heavy on his neck. The flowery breath easing through his window did nothing for the beads of cold sweat breaking over his upper lip.

He resisted._ Defied_. But he was exhausted, and given his rather amorous activities this evening, one might even say he was _spent_. And that empty place tugged at his consciousness with a warm, comforting hand, promising release from his dank, dreary cell. And wouldn't he like that? Wouldn't it be wonderful to spend an evening without chains, without that awful music making him want to tear out his eyes, without worrying how he was going to escape a woman who seemed to predict his every move, without the _dreary_ real world and its troubles ruining all his fun?

_Yes, dearie, don_ _'t spend another moment in that dreary place! Come and dance! The Boyles are throwing a lovely party, and everyone who is anyone is invited. You're the guest of honor, dear sweet man, and I have a surprise for you. A special birthday gift I made from Slackjaw's bones. Yes, yes, that ill-mannered lout is dead! Boiled in the pot and left to rot. You silly thing, did you think burning my cameo and leaving me to that ruffian would end me? Oh no no no, not at all. Granny Rags has faced worse, much worse. Pandyssian savages and doors with teeth! But no hard feelings. I have forgiven you. And I want to do my part again. Yes, do my part for my black-eyed groom. Come, come! The Waltz of Roses is about to begin. And I can't very well dance by myself, can I? _

His chains rusted and crumbled, his cell bars and walls breaking to pieces, revealing the pearlescent skies of the Void and its strange floating debris of the waking world. He floundered in the grip of something, a force that didn't let him drift to the glowing white core of the Void like a stray feather or a puff of cloud.

It yanked.

He plummeted without a sound, unable to stop himself, or transverse onto one of the suspended islands, or break free of the tether that drew him deeper and deeper, toward an unknown destination…

And unknown fate.

* * *

I want to give a sincere thanks to not only my reviewers, but for those who faved and are following. I wouldn't mind a comment or two from you *hint hint* but knowing that you're reading is good enough. But special thanks to Bland and Skarto for their thoughtful reviews and for presenting the concepts I don't always spell out. And even to MD, though we disagreed on some of the more ambiguous aspects of canon, you still provided a few crits that I ironed out in the first chapter.

This story is doing well here, but it's faring better on AO3 - surprisingly. I didn't realize the Dishonored fandom is bigger there, like 200 more stories bigger. And these stories are not all "porn" as some might assume, but with some very wonderful stories that feature rare pairings or no pairings at all. I encourage those reading to check AO3 out if you haven't. There are plenty of gems over there :D


	4. Such a Dreary Party, Dearie

It took an instant to reach the party, and then another to forget how he had arrived and why he had come.

Under endless swathes of violet drapery, masked aristocrats laughed and mingled with one another, their wine glasses full and flowing to the ceiling in streams of Gristol white, Tyvian red and Morley pink. The rat lights cast everyone in shades of mauve and orchid, and deepened the shadows that prowled the edge of the ballroom.

All masks were extravagant in detail and construction. A peacock with a grand display of iridescent feathers fanning behind her head, sampled an apple tart from the line of buffet tables piled high with delicacies from all corners of The Isles. A squid, tentacles wrapped around its owner's head, gossiped with the grotesque visage of a spider. A bloodox and a manic grinning moon drank from the wine fountain, its uphill waterfall forming a sparking lake above their heads.

On his own face, a welcome and familiar weight, and the scent of worn leather, oiled metal. His long coat flapped against his thighs, the gold trim dimming to a muddled brown in the rat light. The crowd parted for him, stopping their conversations, stopping in the middle of tasting or sipping to acknowledge his presence. Guest of honor...yes. This party was for him. They were celebrating...something. Something important.

_But is it a victory or a defeat? The choice is yours, Corvo._

The Outsider's voice wove through the music like a discordant melody. Opposite the buffet tables and the ballroom, a mirror ran the length of the room from floor to ceiling, and reflected a darker version of the merriment around him.

Instead of shimmering decorations and velvet brocades, torn remnants of streamers and ragged cloth littered the dusty floor. Instead of savory appetizers, the worn tables teemed with rotting food. Flies buzzed and maggots crawled. Broken windows glinted the absinthe green of the Earth Moon. Bodies wrapped in the tattered remains of plague shrouds were scattered over the ballroom floor, bones protruding under layers of cobwebs and grime.

On his side of the mirror, the party guests waltzed around the reflected corpses, somehow knowing when and where to slide and step. But on the mirror side, those same guests wore bloodstained rags instead of their opulent attire. Instead of colorful masquerade masks, they donned the plain ceremonial white masks of the Overseers, the usual gaping mouth laced shut by thick, black thread, and weeper tears of the same color leaked from the empty eye holes.

Ghouls. Demons. But riveting in their own grotesque, beautiful way, like spectral creatures from another plane of existence, a more savage world. One where the pretense and airs were stripped away. One where you couldn't hide your true face. And what of himself? How did he appear in the light of this brutal place? No different, unfortunately. Not one detail even slightly askew. Mask and coat were the same. No weeper tears. Why did that disappoint him? Seeing a man where a monster should be? For that's what he was in the end, a monster...no better than the ones who had betrayed him. He'd left death and destruction in his wake, and that alone should damn him. Why did he appear the same?

His reflection shrugged in confusion. It had no answer.

The mirror demons never ceased bowing, dipping and turning with the exaggerated movements of theater performers in the throes of some macabre dance. No music played, but beyond the crumbling walls of the mirror side, whales dragged the decaying ballroom by chains through a lavender gray sea, their song of doom vibrating the soles of his boots. This hypnotic humming pulled him closer to the mirror demons and their dark world, his hand now on the cold surface of the mirror itself, the barrier between here and there trembling like his heart. Not trembling out of fear, but from yearning.

That ballroom was Dunwall, the _real_ Dunwall. Every corroded, bloodied corner and shrouded corpse. The rats and plague festering in the shadows. Weepers spreading their poison. This was the Dunwall he knew, the Dunwall that awaited his return like a restless, hungry spider. In their brief, chaotic affair, he had bathed her in blood, gave her more than enough souls to devour. She remembered his service and she beckoned him now. What times they would have again. The violence and terror they would spread like the plague itself. All he had to do was step into her web...

And he was_ home._

But a rumbling noise broke the spell, prevented him from crossing over. Something in the place of his reflection, and while not the horror he had wanted, it was a monster of a different sort. The hulking animal sat on its haunches and groomed its large paw with the languid half-lidded contentment of a housecat. Sleek claws flashed and its tongue lapped between them. Tapered ears flicked at the music from the light side of the mirror, yellow eyes staring with luminous curiosity, and its coat shining with—

_All the colors of autumn_.

"It's called a Tyger, dearie," said a woman, her reflection hidden behind the bulk of the great cat. He turned to the elegant noble dressed in a suit of navy and gold that clung to the equal swell of her bust and hips, her abundant dark hair swept on the top of her head in an ornate braided coiffure that glittered under a golden net of sapphires. Her face was somehow both familiar and new: slanted cheekbones just a shade too sharp. Khol-lined eyes that held secrets and a glimmer of madness. He had seen that gaze before...somewhere. Had Sokolov painted her? Before he could muse on it further, she spoke again with a little chortle that crept the edge between insanity and charm. "And it suits you, dear one. Yes it does. Such a feral thing, a powerful thing. A man after my own heart. Come with me by the fire, I want to tell you a tale about a screaming witch."

He intended to protest, but some strange haze descended upon him when her arm linked with his, and she lead him through the throng of the waltzing partygoers as if leading a sleepwalking child back to bed. The Tyger in the mirror rumbled warily, but followed, snapping at the swarm of rats that suddenly appeared around its legs. The rats evaded the sharp teeth and the irritated swipes, seeking the safety of the noblewoman's shadow—which on the mirror side, seemed to spread across the floor like a yawning black maw._ Doors with teeth,_ whispered a shade of a girl standing still and pale in the midst of the dancers. Her red hair flowed to the ceiling as if underwater, swathes of white cloth billowing around her naked form. She held her saintly pose long enough for him to see her, then faded. The gentle tug on his arm turned insistent, and the rats around the noblewoman's boots nipped at the Tyger's paws.

"Hurry now, dearie. It may be the Void, but time here isn't endless. No, no. It shifts and bends and scatters like sand. Magic in the waking world has its limits and my circle burns."

They passed the party guests and their mirror demons, but they paid no attention. Maybe they couldn't see the woman or him at all. The woman's face in the mirror blurred. Glimpses of age then youth. The dark swarm at her feet grew in number. So many hungry red eyes staring at him.

"Ah, my little birdies are excited. Today is a most special day, the day I show my black-eyed groom the depth of my love. Such a fickle creature he can be sometimes! Always choosing new pretties to play with. Always showing favor to the wrong sort— the worst of us. Sometimes he needs a little reminder of who he left behind...the most devoted of his chosen. No one has been more loyal, more selfless than I…and this sacrifice will be my last, the one that will earn my place at his side."

"What about the screaming witch?" he asked, sounding as baffled as he felt. Nothing this woman said made any sense, but there was the slithering spread of alarm—and though he couldn't voice it, the Tyger seemed to sense the same thing, and it purred a growl from the mirror, flattening its ears and twitching its tail. Yes, he agreed. Something wasn't right. His arm burned where her fingers clenched, but something kept him from freeing himself. His thoughts clumped like jellied eels. The noblewoman chuckled and patted his arm as if to say "there, there," then half steered/half yanked him toward the massive ivory fireplace that jutted out of a slab of rock the same color. Didn't that used to be a wall? In the mirror, the fireplace appeared black, violet flames roaring instead of the smoldering embers on the light side.

"Yes, yes, the screaming witch. That fool woman who spurned his love and tried to take what didn't belong to her. So many grand ideas. So many selfish desires. As if no one would notice the darkness in the that young girl's eyes. The ice in her voice! There are rules for a reason, dearie. Prod and push them yes, but never tear them down. Never, never." Her hand (or was it a claw?) firmly clasped around his wrist, the noblewoman stopped in front of the fireplace and gestured to a painting in the midst of materializing above the mantle. "Look close, dearie, look deep. This is what becomes of those who lose his favor."

At first, he didn't understand what he was seeing, but then a tree formed at the center of the painting, born out of a stormy and sketchy version of the Void, with virulent and twisting branches contrasting the pewter clouds, roots clinging to a dagger slice of rock. Small islands topped with the same green floated around it, and a crumbling ruin of a bridge arched from the center rock toward them, but diminished into sparse linework before it could connect. The style of the art seemed fitful, arbitrary, the frenetic brush strokes— as if the painter had been prone to bouts of manic frenzy. Looking at it created a queasy knot in his stomach, his eyes unable to focus on it for very long, lest his vision cross or blur. The main bridge lengthened and warped, then smaller versions of it started crisscrossing the Void, building themselves out of clouds and leaves only to collapse and dissolve and rebuild again.

And at the center tree, a figure, sexless, spindly and black, mouth agape—a mouth so large it seemed to consume half of the angular white face, the rest of its features like the masks the mirror demons wore.

"This is her fate. Shrieking her failure for all eternity. Remember it, dearie, remember it well. Never disappoint my black-eyed groom." The noblewoman clucked her tongue, and in the mirror her reflection sharpened a moment, lines and sagging skin. An old woman. A name in his head, but said backwards. Rags, something. Moray? Rags Moray. No, that wasn't right. Why couldn't he focus?

"The Knife put an end to her," she said with sudden gravitas, giving this statement weight and consideration. "Guilt drove him to the deed, just as vengeance drove you to destroy him—but then you let him go, didn't you? One of your many, many regrets." Her sly smile turned his stomach more than the painting—or the howling thing at its core. "Why don't you come closer? Yes, yes, closer...right there. Do you hear it? It's just a whisper, of course. Those who hear her scream go mad, their minds shattering like hers with the agony of realization, when all her dreams had slipped away in one instant." Her voice dropped to a raspy snarl and her hands jerked the lapels of his coat. Her breath rolled over him, sour and ancient, yellow teeth and cracked lips smiling wide. "Doomed and damned. She relives her moment of defeat over…and over. Forever, dearie. And what will your punishment be? What do you deserve? Serkonon filth, thinking you were one of us. Flirting with your betters. Rutting with an Empress! And that child…that sweet little girl. You let her FALL."

She shoved him with inhuman strength and he hit the fireplace, taking a chunk of it with him on the way down. In the mirror, the rats attacked the Tyger, swarming it, dots of red blossoming all over its coat. The battle waged in silence, the Tyger baring its teeth in a roar that shook the glass, but never reached beyond it. Neither did the squeaks and yips of its attackers. The Tyger spun and bit and devoured them as quick as they leaped, but it was becoming overwhelmed. Every injury the Tyger suffered, reflected on him. He stumbled to his knees, gasping, bite marks on his hands, burning on his neck and body. The haze that had muddled his thoughts lifted with the flare of white from his hand. The noblewoman laughed, a sneering cackle that didn't match her young face— but that was because she wasn't young. And she wasn't a noble. Not anymore.

"Granny Rags," he said and spat blood. "Well played, you old cunt." Getting to his feet was the easy part, it was the not falling over that required effort. Caged by a ring of dead rodents, the Tyger was holding its own, but for how long depended on him. "But it wasn't good enough. Maybe if you had stopped prattling on about a thing that will never love you, you could have had me." And speaking of that certain black-eyed bastard, he was nowhere to be seen—or heard. But that didn't mean he wasn't far. The Outsider wouldn't miss a confrontation like this, not when it was taking place on the equivalent of his doorstep.

"I already have you, dearie. Your soul at least. Sadly not your bones," Granny Rags said with a sigh. "And they would have made such a wonderful stew." She clasped her hands and rubbed them, her rich attire changing into what she had been wearing that day when she made him choose between Slackjaw and her, to take sides in a fight not his. He supposed she hadn't cared for his choice.

"And how, exactly, do you have my soul?" Because the blood whooshing in his ears and the ache in his spine felt real enough to him. Was this all in his head? Or could a soul be injured in the Void as a physical body in the real world? A dream body in this case, but could it take more, or less of a beating? Piero would know...always dabbling with the unknown, the mysterious Void. Creating theories and inventions that walked that fine line between madness and brilliance: The Mask, Piero's Spiritual Remedy, The Door to Nowhere.

_Doors with teeth,_ reminded an imaginary Arella. By the Void, he couldn't even get rid of her_ in_ the Void.

Granny continued to taunt him, and her little birdies continued harassing the Tyger. "You owe me a dance, dear one. Remember? Come to Granny and I'll give you the peace you crave." Her dark hair lightened to gray, jewels from the net holding her coiffure pinging to the floor and turning to dust.

"I think dancing is out of the question for a while." His dream kneecaps complained with a twinge. Would he have dream bruises later? "And I'm not handing my soul over to you. You going to have to work for it."

"Yes, dear one, I expected as much—my, you _are_ putting up quite a struggle aren't you? Just like the beast you are. But you'll eventually tire and die. I only asked you to dance to take your mind off it. Death doesn't have to be difficult or painful if you let Granny ease the way. Give up, dearie. Your Empress whore is never coming back, and you let your bastard daughter tumble off a cliff. There's no reason to continue on. Everyone despises you, my black-eyed groom most of all. Why else is he allowing me to do this?"

The Tyger pounced on a fresh wave of rats, gore caking its muzzle, its eyes wide and radiant with fury. His soul, eh? It would explain the taste of blood in his mouth, and the violent need to start breaking things— the first being the foul-mouthed old hag in front of him. Her misty powers and teleportation proved a challenge last time, one after he'd burned her cameo, he left for Slackjaw to finish. But burning the cameo must not have been enough to destroy her, and now he was in her world—or some twisted version of it. The advantage belonged to her, but every trap had a release somewhere. It would take some pulling and jiggling to find it, but once that door sprang, he was going for her throat.

"The Outsider wants us to fight because it's entertainment," he said. "That's his only use for us. Not courting, not marriage - and certainly not your wedding night. Your delusion isn't even funny anymore. It's sad. Pathetic. Granny Rags pining for her black-eyed groom. He's laughing at you, Vera."

"He laughs at fools and I'm far from a fool, dearie. He chose me. He loves me. The others of you are tools of circumstance, dull and ordinary, made for one use. You've been tossed aside."

"In favor of you?" His mask hollowed his laugh into something unsettling and empty. "I don't think so. We're two hounds in a pit and he's not wagering a single coin. He wants us to kill each other. It was the same with Daud. It was the same even with that Delilah. All this choosing and marking and claiming we can change the world— it's oxshit! And what's worse is that I bought into it. I believed him. I was going to take down the Empire, free The Isles! And before everything went to shit I did do one thing, the most important thing. This filthy Serkonon drove an entire city into the Void and sent her leaders right along after her. And you think you can take my soul, witch? You think you're strong enough?" He advanced, and while she didn't back away, she wrung her hands and pressed her lips together, the rouge on her cheeks like smears of red paint against the ashen skin beneath.

"Such an ill-mannered boy you are, threatening an old woman. You're just like that Slackjaw, all bluster and no bite."

"Oh, I bite, witch." He took his mask off and threw it on the floor where it skid into the mirror version of itself. "And when I taste blood I don't let go."

Granny went even paler - if that was possible- but stood her ground. "I ate that lout and pickled his eyes. I wear his strong white bones around my neck." She yanked the necklace from under her dirty jacket. Her hand shook as it closed around a fingerbone pendant, and unseen bone charms sang in warning.

"Good for you. Let's get this over with." He didn't have any bone charms, but the Void sang all around him, the whales humming, the eerie trill of the wind. Somehow that infused this dream body of his with more energy, more strength to fight. The mark glowed white, and then settled into another color he'd never seen before: a vibrant violet. Bloodied and weary, the Tyger in the mirror readied itself for another charge of the vermin army.

"_Wait…I have a different proposition."_

The Outsider's voice rang through his head, ruining whatever concentration and stamina he had mustered for battle. Granny Rags uttered a startled, joyful cry-forgetting all about feeding his soul to her little birdies. She transformed from ancient crone to summer maiden, moth-eaten jacket to satin and lace. Even the sapphires were back in her hair, polished and glittering. Despite all she had done, it tugged at his dream heart to see that much hope in her eyes, knowing the one who put it there, could easily crush it with a word.

The mirror demons waltzed slower, and slower as if being cranked to a standstill, leading to final positions that were both unintentionally amusing and profoundly disturbing. The same happened on the light side of the party: the guests freezing mid-bite, mid-gossip, and mid-dance. And not only them, but the rats and Tyger became taxidermy displays, caught at the precise moment of launching themselves at one another. A strong suction of wind then, as if both dark and light sides of the room exhaled in a rush. Absolute stillness. Time crystallized.

In the vacuum of silence, he teetered on his feet, the floor suddenly a seesaw instead of solid marble. Disorientated, ears throbbing, he steadied himself against the mantle, fingertips accidentally bumping against the screaming-witch painting - aka, Delilah Copperspoon, would-be murderer to Emily Kaldwin if she had gotten her way - but that had been his privilege all along, his betrayal and sin. Mother and daughter, stains on his soul that would never come clean.

Wheezing in his ears— or was it distant howling? Phantom lips, cold and rough against his neck._ Lord Protector._.. it said. Then came the unmistakable glide of a wet tongue. Revolted, he lurched away from the painting and groped toward the safety of the nearby buffet table, taking great pains not to touch the human statues that surrounded it. That had been another harsh lesson. After poking the bald head of a frozen Hiram Burrows (just to see what would happen), the rush of numbers and lists and paranoid ramblings had sent him almost tumbling into the Void.

Granny Rags wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to his flailing about - in fact, he doubted the entire Gristol navy firing a barrage of cannonballs would've fazed her. Like a faithful wife awaiting the return of her husband, she pressed her forehead against the mirror, hands on either side, palms flat-and said three dreaded words in breathless adoration: "My darling comes."

And like most evil things, his doom approached from the dark side of the mirror. The Outsider glided past the paralyzed mirror demons with an oily fluidness, the Void gathering around him in an ever-shifting cloud of stars and smoke. A faint purple nimbus, like translucent silk, threaded through this cloud and trailed behind. In all his meetings with the Outsider, this was the first time he'd seen those black boots touching the floor. Not floating like a spirit, but walking like man for once.

But…wait. In a dream-like reversal, one that had him addled and doubting his sense of direction, Granny Rags now wasn't looking into the mirror, but facing the other way— toward the green giant jello molds sparkling in the lights, and half-eaten tarts clasped in the hands of hungry statues. Her hands fluttered at her breast, a sickening expression of kittenish yearning on her face.

The mirror reflected a similar expression on his own face, but it had nothing to do with love and yearning. Running at this point was out of the question, and forget about waking up. He was caught, finally, and he had no way to predict how The Outsider would handle this reunion. If he was lucky, he'd wake up in chains, if not…well…

"What happens next depends on you, Corvo. And of course, my lovely Vera."

Granny Rags loosed a pent-up, shaky sigh that seemed to deflate her entire body. He held his breath and turned. How in the Void (and yes, he realized the irony of using that word in the very same place) had that bastard gotten so close without him realizing?

The dark mirror Outsider stood in the center of the mirror demons, but the real Outsider_ levitated_ no more than three paces away from them, attired in his usual unremarkable tunic, overcoat, and pants, dark hair barely long enough to wisp over his forehead, and skin like a pearl glowing in moonlight—not glowing from a mystical source, but from the light surrounding them all: rat lights and whale oil lamps all radiating the power and mystery of dusk. And that shimmer of light in the inky cosmos curling around the Outsider, like glimpses though a key hole, teasing the conception of those firefly stars.

He took a step back, and then another, and then stopped himself before he outright fled. Seeing the Outsider after so many years was like being kicked in the stomach by something divine, causing a clash of elation and terror so intense that it brought back the attic at the Hound Pits Pub, that dizzying first dream, the peculiar beauty of the Void, the anxiety and hope of being chosen for something greater, the burning pleasure of the Mark searing his flesh and soul, and then that exhilarating leap into the unknown, The Outsider bowing with that impish smile: _"come find me"._

A chance to spread his wings, to fly. No limits. No rules. Pure freedom...or so The Outsider had led him to believe. Every possible future, an infinite number of doors—but he only ever had the keys to one. That was reality. That had been his co-called "choice".

"But it wasn't your _only_ choice," the real Outsider said, canting his head and studying him with more than the usual mix of apathy and polite interest. A frown creased that pale forehead, and the black-eyed stare seemed colder, more calculating.

"Stay out of my mind, Outsider," he snapped, ignoring the sensible voice that told him to behave, to respect—to not piss off the ancient being that could crush him into nothingness. "You never had that privilege and you don't have it now."

"Brute! Mind that tongue of yours or I'll cut it out!" said Granny Rags, going from doe-eyed to madwoman.

He spun on her so quick she flinched and pawed at her breast for Slackjaw's fingerbone. "Go on, you old hag, do it. I'll even hold it out for you —oh wait, that's right. We're not really here, are we? So there's no tongue for you to cut. What was that you said? All bluster and no bite?" She bristled as he laughed.

"I'll tear you to pieces and scatter them across the Void," she hissed, sneaking glances at the Outsider as he floated closer, watching them with alien intrigue. "Kill you a thousand times in a thousand different ways, trap your soul in this plane and leave your body to rot."

He held out his arms, flicking his fingers in a "come on" gesture. "All I hear is barking, Granny."

"Where are my little birdies? Kill him! Strip his bones clean!"

"I think your little birdies are too busy being little statues."

The small, dark chuckle from the Outsider made him cringe, sheepish, caught slinging river mud at a girl he disliked. Granny Rags, cords of her slender neck taut with rage, instantly softened, a rosy flush gathering in her cheeks and ironically, taking even more years off her mask of false youth.

"My most devout and most defiant…what a pair you make!" The Outsider raised his arms as if congratulating them. "Settling old feuds and past slights with such grace and understanding. Perhaps my intervention was unnecessary after all."

"Everything you do is unnecessary," he said and shifted his glare from Granny Rags to the Outsider. "Why can't you leave me alone? Five years wasn't a big enough hint? And don't tell me you weren't watching because how does Granny Rags conveniently manage to snag me the one time— the only damn time—I can't protect myself? This is your kingdom, Outsider. Nothing happens here without your consent."

"Yes, I allowed Vera to bring you here." The Outsider's humor— what little there had been—disappeared under a tone of mild reproach. "But not for the reasons you assume. And protection, Corvo? Is that what you call severing the bonds between you and the Void, night after night. Year after year. Weakening them, and in turn, weakening yourself?"

"No, the magic always came back." The Holger device had been his shield, sturdy and proven. And so what if he had woken every morning nauseated and head pounding. The peace it gave during the night had been worth it. "And it was the same…even better. Actually manageable for once." Heat pulsed in his cheeks, but from embarrassment or anger, he didn't know. "I have more control over it than before. It took eight of those music boxes to bring me down."

The Outsider craned his head forward, leaning slightly with the movement. "It should have taken _more.__"_

Granny Rags huffed and fanned herself with a fan made entirely out of roses and leaves—and that had materialized, it seemed, from the stream of wine flowing from the buffet table fountain. "It's true, dearie. Your spirit is weak. Otherwise I couldn't have summoned you here. Oh, you're so much like my husband! He too thought he knew everything, thought he had control, but he only hurt himself in the end— and me most of all. Selfish lout, leaving a hole in my world. Such a waste of intellect. Of talent! And you, you foolish man. All that nasty noise for nothing. You weren't keeping my groom away…he was _avoiding_ you," she said with a growl of dismissal and collapsed the fan with a snap—sending a cloudburst of crinkled, dehydrated petals into the air—some drifting into the open mouth of a female aristocrat frozen in the middle of eating a stemmed cherry.

"Is she telling the truth?" He said to the dark mirror Outsider. It seemed easier to talk like this, a barrier between them. Something comforting about that side of the mirror: grimacing masks and weeper tears, decay and corpses, and this version of the Outsider standing as a normal man, albeit one that radiated stars and shadows. "I was…making it worse?…damaging myself?"

The dark mirror Outsider put his hands behind his back, a familiar pose associated with pointless and vague ramblings that usually made less sense in the end than they had in the beginning. "I can walk in your world whenever I choose, Corvo, despite the Abby's lies that I'm contained here. Far from it. I simply prefer the Void over the redundancy of your reality. No matter the Age, the year, or generation, it's the same situations, the same choices, the same outcomes. There's little in your world that can or will interest me for long—but know this," the Outsider lowered his arms, the black and silver rings on his right hand gleaming, "if I had desired to speak to you, or sought you for whatever reason, nothing in the Void or Cosmos— or in your dismal, tedious world could have stopped me."

"But...you said I was a beacon among millions." By the Cosmos, he sounded like Granny Rags. Wanting and needy. He tried to salvage his pride: "What was all that when I was falling asleep? You said I had your _undivided attention. _When you told me that I was— " faltering, unable to say it without sounding like a jilted lover, so he dropped it, switched directions— "so were you lying? Playing with me? I don't think so, Outsider. When Fairchild was throttling the life out of me, I remember your voice—" accusing now, desperation creeping in. The Outsider raised his eyebrow, the slightest beginnings of a smirk tugging at on the side of his mouth— "Damn you. I said stop playing with me! If I wasn't interesting, you wouldn't have bothered. And you wouldn't have warned me about Granny Rags," he said with a jerk of his head in her direction. She scowled and looked away, displaying the same profile—sloping nose, upturned tip, lips curved and plump above a jutting round chin—as the cameo he threw into the incinerator without a second thought. Too late to apologize now.

"I warned you because it suited me," the dark Outsider said. "And because we have a history, just as Vera and I have a history. I don't abandon my Marked, even when they fail to make the right choices. After all, there are only six of you left now—six souls that have the power to change your world—some will shine bright, altering their futures and the futures of those around them. Entire cities will change. Governments and Empires. But some will languish and fade, forgotten by all...except me."

"So which one am I?" he whispered, beyond humiliated, furiously blinking and focusing on anything other than Granny Rags standing smug and beautiful between two male party guests trapped forever in the act of refilling their glasses of wine.

A pause, and then a shift in those black eyes, like a kingsparrow ready to toss its young from the nest. Paternal to predatory. "You were the latter, but that has changed. Your current predicament…intrigues me greatly."

"Yes…right…of course it does." He threw his hands up, the Mark glowing. "That's what it takes now? Being chained to the wall? Tortured? Oh I'm sorry, Corvo," he said, mimicking the Outsider's bland tone. "You can't be interesting unless you're being betrayed or dying from poison or being chased around by cannibalistic witches."

"I beg your pardon, young—"

"Oh Granny, shut up!" Seething now, the Mark like a burning piece of coal on his hand. But there was comfort in this rage, a deep sense of rightness. He continued to address the dark mirror Outsider, who in turn, continued to gaze at him with the obligatory interest of a stranger— as if he was rambling on about politics or the weather. Another dismissal, once again reminding him how unimportant he was.

"If pain and suffering was all it took to turn your black eyes my way, we would have had this conversation long ago. No, Outsider. Say the real reason. Lay it on the table. This sudden interest has to do with a certain redhead who can see the future— and she really can. No tricks. No tea leaves or tarot decks. Or drugged trances. She's the real thing. And what's more is that she seems to be more than an Oracle…and I think you know what she is."

"I do," the Outsider said, and then said nothing more.

"Then…she is yours?"

"She is not."

"Right, another lie. Tell me, Outsider, then how can she see what she sees? What is that darkness in her eyes? That electrical magic she seems to have? And she knows things — and not only in the future, but in the past."

"Yes, High Oracle Arella is powerful witch…but she's not_ my_ witch."

"How can she not be yours? She's of the Void and you ARE the Void. Stop playing games with me, damnit. What is she?"

A slight narrowing of those black eyes, and then a tightening of expression, a look that settled in between patience and irritation. "That depends on you, Corvo."

Steady now. Breathe. The mark pulsed on the back of his hand. Odd how his emotions roused it, like it was more a part of him now than before. Not a tool to wield, but an extension of himself. But he wouldn't dare use it against the Outsider. It'd be like biting the hand that fed him, even though he wouldn't mind snapping off a few fingers for his trouble. But losing his temper now wouldn't get any answers, so he tried the direct approach: "And why would Arella — what she is, her state of being, her very existence— depend on me?" There, couldn't be any clearer than that.

"What remains of the Empire depends on you. Your precious Isles. Your entire world. All will be altered—but how, and how severely—is your decision. This is why I find you interesting again. So much hinges on your future, the path you take."

Reeling now, Arella's aspirations whirling in his head, all too real plans that required him to do the unthinkable. "And if I decide to kill you? If that's even possible…" His words trailed into silence, and that silence lengthened, deepened, became as dark as his thoughts. And the dark mirror Outsider waited, patient, face unmarred by expression or emotion, but those eyes said something different. Like Arella, something lurked beyond them, something inconceivable, intangible, a formless mass that churned and roiled like the sea under a gale, a force barely held in check, straining toward him.

Terrifying. Mesmerizing. The very air seemed to shiver with it. And Granny Rags shuddered at the edge of his vision, lost in an euphoric fugue.

The dark mirror Outsider tilted his head, his voice a gentle wave of brine and foam: "If you destroy me, you destroy yourself."

"So why not kill me first? What's stopping you?"

"Corvo…" The Outsider used the same tone Callista had used on Emily during her studies, that chiding: _"you should know this, dear, we've gone over it before." _

But he didn't know the answer, couldn't comprehend why he was even standing here when his very existence threatened to end this powerful entity. If the roles were reversed…

Another rare laugh, mocking and affectionate. "But lucky for you, Corvo, they are not. Perhaps you should be grateful."

"But he isn't, my groom." Granny Rags, reminding them of her presence. She had moved closer to him, which brought her closer to the Outsider, but refrained from approaching the Outsider directly, as if obeying some unspoken rule. "Oh why do you let him live? He doesn't deserve your mercy. He hasn't earned it."

"Hasn't he? He's the reason for the delightful state of the Empire, the Plague Wall around Dunwall, the city that eats itself." The dark mirror Outsider started toward them, the demons falling to ash as he passed. The vibrations increased, as did the thickness of the air. Instinct told him to turn around, face the real Outsider, but his body wouldn't turn. His feet wouldn't move. Paralyzed, his dream heart hammering in his chest and make-believe blood tingling in his hands. The Mark was on fire.

"No other has achieved such chaos, such single-minded destruction," the real Outsider said behind him. "Revenge solved all your problems and created a multitude of new ones. And I had a lovely time watching."

"You spare me because of that? Because I'm…entertaining?" At least his mouth could still move. The rest of his dream body refused. The muted hiss of dust hitting floor behind him. More statues meeting their fates. The real Outsider, and his dark mirror reflection, both of them…coming. Cosmos help him.

"Corvo, if I annihilated every threat to my existence, The Abbey of the Everyman would have died at conception. I would have wiped the very idea from the minds of its founders."

"Why didn't…you?" His dream lungs were imploding with every breath. A tear slipped down his cheek, followed by more. Whale song in his bones, in his teeth, splitting his skull. So close now, both Outsiders almost on him.

"They weren't always obsessed with me. Once they were a noble clergy, devoted to harmony with the Cosmos and to the well-being of all mankind."

"Until you…came…along." That earned him a smile from the dark mirror Outsider, their reflections juxtaposing, his own stricken reflection a ghostly outline that eclipsed the starlit faces. Dark threads stretched across his vision. Twinkling lights caught in the sticky strands. The Outsider lied. He was going to die here. Crumble to dust like the party guests, the mirror demons.

"Corvo, Corvo…what a web you've entangled yourself in," the real Outsider whispered in his ear, shocking the tiny hairs there. "Dunwall's still waiting for you. The city beneath the city, a secret place that will reveal itself—if you look hard enough."

"Dunwall…is…dead—" His throat convulsed, then closed. Words in his head were fighting to escape.

"It's never been more alive." Sobbing somewhere…Granny? Why was she crying? In the mirror, the real Outsider floated behind him, reflected chin above his shoulder, iridescence shining in the corners of his black eyes, like fine sand in the moonlight. The dark mirror Outsider stood in front of them, a reflection not a reflection, and pushed one pale finger though the mirror, reaching out, the tip catching a tear and turning it to ash on his cheek. His mind buckled, but his body remained frozen. The Outsider's touch was like being torn apart, caressed by a hurricane, or typhoon, all the depth and pressure of the ocean, and the teeth of the monsters that dwelt in its deepest fathoms. It scattered him. Left him senseless, unable to blink, unable to swallow or even remember his name.

His hand burned.

"You're a paradox, Corvo Attano. Running from the thing you seek, hiding from what you hope finds you. Years of yearning buried under blame and hate. Yes, I see everything. Your love, your fears, what you desire most. And it isn't want you think. Even when I Marked you, I knew the possibility of this path, the possibility that one day, you and I would have this conversation. That you could be my judgment, the one who ends my four millennia of enslavement and dominion by the Void. As improbable as it seemed, the prospect of dying _thrilled _me. It's why I chose you, Corvo. Not for the Empress, or Daud, or for the Regent, or the Empire. It was this moment. This choice that faces you now. The days to come are full of promise, of betrayals and blood. Our fates are entwined until the end. Who will lose, I wonder?"

The dark mirror Outsider traced his jaw, the bone cracking like a splintered tree. Lips grazing his neck, the real Outsider unable to help himself, following the line of straining muscles to his ear. Blood congealed in his veins, muscles spasming—and dream body or not, he was dying.

"No," said the real Outsider, "you're being rescued. Right now, actually. An unlikely ally…and he too, will play a vital role in our story. Listen to him. Learn to trust him. He might just save us both."

"Now..." the dark mirror Outsider said, breaching the mirror barrier, arms wide, preparing for a lethal embrace, "open your eyes, Corvo."

Falling again, this time up. And up. Swimming backwards in a whirlpool of clouds and sea. A flash of that ballroom at the bottom, light and dark sides merging and Granny Rags in the center, a circle of blood beneath her kneeling form. Ancient crone again, but her face was so far away, how could he know? And the Outsider standing over her, bowing to her as if she was royalty, and her tear-streaked face beaming at him. Such love there.

The Outsider extended his hand, words drifting up, but also so close, as if spoken into his ear:_ My lady, would you care to dance?_

_No! She__'ll die. If she touches him, she'll die! _

He woke thrashing. Chains clanging. Pinking light bands against his bars. Dawn. The cell. The muck drying on his ass.

One lantern lit. Weak flickering light and a dark shape outside his bars— taller than Arella, but shorter than Hawk. It watched him, eyes covered by a hood of some sort. Not a guard then. And not a Warfare. One of Arella's handmaidens?

Several moments passed, both of them appraising each other— or rather it was appraising him. He couldn't see shit. The Outsider's words came back in haunting fragments:_ a city beneath a city__…you're a paradox…an unlikely ally._

And Granny Rags…her last dance with her black-eyed groom.

"You dreamed of him, didn't you?" A woman, but not one of Arella's. Not any of the court either. Her voice had a deliberate quality to it, a slight pause between words. Gristol accent, strong and clear. A slim, brown hand grasped the bar of his cell, and shimmered in the pink light of dawn.

Then half her hand disappeared.

Her fingers flexed, a queer effect of translucency— radiant air in the shape of a thumb, a ring finger. Realization hit a second later. Damn, he was slow. He sat up straighter, tried to wake up.

"Wraith," he said. "Where's your leader?"

She ignored his question. "Did he speak to you? The Outsider. I know you dreamed about him. What did he say?" Eagerness in her voice, not so thoughtful. Thirsty, it seemed, for the Outsider.

When he didn't answer—when he sighed and glared at her shadow, she grabbed a bar with her other hand, this time turning her wrist, displaying something on the top part of her hand.

The Mark.

He stared at it— took a good hard look before shaking his head. If he had his hands free, he would have covered his eyes in shame. "You fool girl, you painted that on yourself. Why, I can only guess. Nothing good comes from the Outsider. He's evil, corrupt—" _y__es, I see everything. Your love, your fears, what you desire most_— "You think that _brand_ makes you special. Powerful. Even unstoppable. It doesn't. It damns you. Trust me, you don't want it."

"But I have it, Lord Protector. Would you like to see?" She grinned in the dark, all white teeth and the bright white of her eyes shining. Then the Mark flared to life on her hand, the light causing her hand itself to fade, and the Mark to stand in stark relief, like a glyph drawn in midair. "That's right," she said, gloating, proving him wrong. "I'm one of you now."

"You…deluded bitch," he said, wincing at the pride in her voice, her ignorance horrifying him. "You have no idea what he's done to you."

She came into full view then, hood pulling back, her face an exotic clash of high cheekbones and high forehead, wide nose and voluptuous lips— and then the war paint, transforming her from exotic to feral—like a Pandyssian savage. A cross of black went from the middle of her crimson forehead, down her nose, and over her eyes, slashes of black on her crimson cheeks. Lips red with a short band of black down the middle. And the rest of her, garbed in what looked like thin, shimmering black cloth, leather corset snug under her small breasts, kept sending his perception into revolt. Fading in and out of sight, light bending the wrong way around her, giving her the allusion of being formed out of shadow.

She stared him down like Granny Rags had in the dream, a mysterious dark queen, full of vanity and allure, daring him to judge her—prepared to punish, to strike him down if he opened his mouth and said something stupid again.

"Billie, leave him be. He's had a rough night."

Unmistakable, that voice. Its rough pitch, like purring sandpaper. An unlikely ally. Of course…_Daud. _

"Daud, how long have you been standing here?" he said, trying to scoot his pants higher in his compromised position, and ended up with more mud caking his skin. Wonderful. Chained and half-naked and rolling in mud. Could this get any more humiliating?

A cigarette lit from the darkened corner of the stairwell, flared once and then smoldered. Then footsteps, heavy, but balanced…meditated almost—and as deliberate in pace as Billie's spoken words had been upon introduction. The last five years had changed Daud little, and when he came into view, drawing back his hood, taking another drag of the cigarette and puffing it out thoughtfully, it was like being back in that ruined building in the Flooded District, on that ledge, Daud bleeding and kneeling before him, and the choice he had: _I have one more surprise for you. I ask for my life. _

That scar, hidden now under the same crimson and black war paint, but instead of the cross, the colors divided Daud's face, connecting at his forehead by the likeness of the Mark. An open, steady gaze met his. A hint of sadness…and pity. He matched it with one he had worn at Jessamine's court, revealing nothing of his emotion, setting his jaw, squaring his shoulders. Fuck the mud, and Daud's damn regret —always with that look, as if he were a hound Daud thought he had to put down, but always found a reason to avoid it.

"Looks like he woke up on the wrong side of the chains." Laughter in Billie's voice, and an ominous click. Something winked on her wrist…an acid green of a sleep dart. Daud threw down his cigarette, snuffed it out with the heel of his boot. Like Billie, he wore the same enchanted clothes with the same breathable material, but suited for a male: sleeveless vest and tunic, draping cloak and hood, various pouches and belts, gloves that went to his elbow. And a wristbolt mechanism, also armed with a little green dart.

"Dreaming of the Outsider is like not sleeping at all. It's a long, bumpy ride to the Void, and even worse coming back." Daud leaned against the bars, eying the hay, the chains, the overturned water jug. And then those eyes resumed their inspection of him, his state of undress, the mud on his pants. Daud smirked as if enjoying a private joke. "The black-eyed bastard certainly had his way with you, didn't he? And I doubt he was gentle. Never was with me. I would say it serves you right with that cursed box you kept in your room, but that goes without saying." Daud looped his arms through the bars, his arms disappearing, amputating him from hand to elbow. That gunk they glazed on their clothes—crushed Wraith Crust shells and their saliva— so the rumor said. Wraith Crusts dotted the shores of Serkonos, but thrived in the caves and deep trenches inland. All but invisible to the naked eye, a slight distortion of light around them when immobile, and a prism of colors when spewing their deadly venom.

"This can go two ways, Corvo," Daud said, amiable, old buddies having a chat. "We can make this easy and give you another nap—this one hopefully more peaceful— or you can come with us of your own free will."

"And the catch?"

"You come with me to the catacombs. As my…guest."

"But I'll be your _guest_ regardless if I'm unconscious or not, so why the choice?"

"I'm trying to give you some dignity. Looks like you could use it."

He sucked in his breath, exhaled. Sensible, maybe he could use this. But already anticipating potential deception, Daud added, "You will be restrained, either way. Sorry, Corvo, but I know your powers. I know how they've grown. I'm not taking any chances."

"Why in the Void are you here anyway?" Billie's green dart pointed in his direction, a warning for his tone. He got the hint, eased back. "Did the Outsider tell you?"

"No, I'm here because of the bounty on your head."

"Don't be an idiot. There's a bounty on your head, not mine."

"I'm aware of that bounty, as I'm aware this High Overseer is framing me for the Duke's murder." A wink of teeth, and then a nod. "Roles reversed, Lord Protector. I suppose I had it coming."

"But I've been here for days. No one knows I'm here except the zealots that imprisoned me— so why would they post a bounty on their own captive?"

"The price on your head isn't from them, or from those pirates you pissed off last year, or from anyone in that tattered mess of an Empire." Daud leveled his stare, making sure his next words drove the point home.

"The bounty's mine," Daud said. "And I've come to collect."

* * *

I'll have a commentary on this chapter. Nifty and rare Outsider info. Link on my profile :D


	5. Tea Party Pt One

He waited before replying, letting Daud's words sink in, letting Daud stare at him with that hard-edged reproach, that _you brought this on yourself,_ _Corvo_ kind of expression that made him long for Hawk's prosaic bearing and patronizing smile. At least with Hawk, he knew where he stood. He knew what Hawk wanted and knew how to manipulate the High Overseer - to a point. But Daud's motivations eluded him. Always had. This so-called rescue was a front for something else, but like Arella, Daud wasn't revealing the plan - only pieces of the puzzle. And whatever endgame Daud had in mind seemed less and less like something he wanted to see.

The growing silence made Daud's slash of a mouth tightened even more, and Billie alternated between clandestine glances at the stairs and baleful sneering. What did she expect? Gratitude? They were kidnapping him from his kidnappers for Void's sake.

_Listen to him. Trust him_, the Outsider had said. But the Outsider had said many things - revelations better left in the darker corners of his mind, moldering, collecting dust. And those toxic hands, both thrilling and terrifying. His bones ached and his head swam. What did that black-eyed bastard do to him? And then Granny...was she still alive? Better for her if she had died in the dream. Her little plague rats had tried to eat him - well, his soul anyway. Had Granny gotten what she wanted in the end? One final waltz with her black-eyed groom.

Doubt remained over her fate, a shifting in his mind like a movement under a shroud - a corpse not quite dead.

"So what's it going to be?" Daud tapped the bars and flicked two fingers at Billie - an impatient "_go ahead_" gesture. She aimed with grinning enthusiasm, the promise of a long, dark nap ready to fly from her wrist if he didn't agree to play hostage. Things had been so much simpler in Dunwall. It had been murder or mercy. Spare or kill. Not this mess of ulterior motives, and bounties collected by the people who issued them.

"How much did you ask for me?" Delaying now and being obvious about it. Still, Daud might bite. There had to be a way out of this without being darted or trussed up like an ox calf. It would be a repeat of the courtyard again, unable to transverse or stop time. Helpless and at Daud's mercy - until Hawk caught them, and then it would be another slaughter - his own, probably, since half the Overseers couldn't wait for a chance to burn the "heresy" out of him.

"Ten thousand coin, alive."

"That's it?"

Daud chuckled, his duel-colored face shimmering, the dark half disappearing entirely into shadow. "Insulted? I raised it twice when that Morleyan hound was barking at the entire city about me assassinating Armas and his son — which you know I had nothing to do with — " tension flickered across Daud's features like a flash of a blade, voice deepening, growing defensive — "Announcement after announcement. Day after day. The Duchess weeping about the monster that killed her boy. And that High Oracle, riling up the commons with all her talk of heavenly doom and how the Void would devour Karnaca piece by piece unless some righteous soul turned me in. Damn that mud lark. And her handler, too. Hawk keeps sending fools into the catacombs. Pulling them off the street: mercenaries, dock boys, even gang members - Black Squids, most of them, but recruiting some Devil Tails from the East side, promising them a fortune in coin if they can find me - coin he never has to pay."

"I can't see Marcus allowing his Devils to commit suicide - no matter how much the coin". The image of the pirate's lean, weathered face rose in his mind, skin so black it shone indigo, and unnatural green eyes - said to be taken straight from the skull of some unfortunate sea serpent. An exaggerated fairy tale, but one repeated so often that Marcus himself probably believed it by now.

"He's thinning out his ranks," Daud said. "Letting this High Overseer do the job for him. That failed coup last year...his crew turning on each other. Those who rode the fence looked as bad as the ones rebelling. Loyalty does tend to improve life expectancy."

"Depends on who you're loyal to," he said, remembering the Duke's order that left seven Devils gurgling their lifeblood on the deck, and Marcus's solemn promise of revenge — a promise that would be sadly unfulfilled considering his current circumstances.

"Right." The noise Daud made seemed part grunt, part laugh. "If I ever earn yours, I'll be dead by morning."

That barb stung more than it should have. Shame welled like blood. "I'd sell my soul to the Outsider before I'd pledge myself to you."

"You already have sold your soul, Corvo. Now enough stalling and answer my question. Or should I have Lurk answer it for you."

"Fine. Say I come along willingly. What then? Do you have another pit waiting for me? A cage? Whatever it is, I hope you clear it of rats and make it deep. Wouldn't want a repeat of that culling I gave your Whalers back in Dunwall, would we?"

"If I can't knock him out, let me muzzle him," Billie spat. "Or cut out his tongue."

"Billie, enough. He knows he has one choice. He just doesn't like it."

"All the more reason to gag him."

A sharp chirp at the top of the stairs, a kingsparrow calling to its mate. Without looking behind him, Daud said: "Time's up. In five minutes the guards will rotate, and then it's another ten to fifteen till morning rounds. Corvo, you had your chance. Billie, knock him out."

"Wait!" He flinched in anticipation of the dart. Daud motioned for Billie to hold - much to her obvious annoyance — and during the warring exchange of doubtful looks between his would-be rescuers, he said with more conviction, "I'll do what you want. And you're right, it's the only choice I have. Don't toss me over your shoulder like a sack of meat."

"I'd rather not carry you at all," Daud said. "But this sudden change of heart? Really, Corvo? I'm many things, but not an idiot."

"Allow me some dignity. Please."

"He'll slow us down less if he's conscious, but it's your call, Daud," Billie said, and lowered her arm, reached for something in one of her many hip pouches. "I'll respect what you decide."

_For now_ hung unsaid between them, and Daud cast Billie a wary glance before saying, "I'll hold you to your word, Corvo, but if you break it..." Daud's warning joined Billie's _for now_, the air growing heavy between them as if burdened. Billie unlocked the cell door, silky cloak fluttering and fading, her entry like a wrathful spirit - and then she was at his side in a _blink,_ the cut-blade sound of her transversal startling a yelp of dismay from his throat. Calculated move, maybe trying to impress him, or intimidate him. Either way, she wouldn't get the satisfaction that reaction again.

The cross on Billie forehead crinkled. "By the Void you stink."

"Fuck you," he said, offended. "I was bathed —" he stammered, cheeks flushing hot— "I mean, I bathed this morning. Last night. Recently...anyway. The mud was an accident."

"I bet it was, Mr. Mud Lark."

"Billie, just tie him up," Daud rubbed the bridge of his nose, the paint flaking. If enough paint wore away, would that part of Daud stay visible while the rest of him disappeared? Would the Overseers flee in terror from a disembodied nose floating down the hall?

"What are you smiling at?" Billie released his chains and kicked him in the back, pitching him face-first into the mud. Stunned and sputtering, mud snorting up his nose, his arms yanked behind his back and wrists tied. Gritty sludge dripped into his eyes. Tiny pins began throbbing in his fingertips. Daud made it a point to stand in the narrow gap of the cell door, arms crossed and pensive as if admiring one of Sokolov's paintings.

He spat brown and struggled onto his aching knees. "Ms Lurk, I'm starting to think you don't like me."

"Whatever gave you that idea?"

"All right, oil him up," Daud said. "Just enough to cover what the cloak can't."

"What?" His attempts to escape made Billie laugh - scooting away while his pants went in the opposite direction - but then she snagged him by the nape of his neck and dragged him back.

"Stay, boy," she said and slathered a thick smear of something cold and smelling heavy of brine and sand onto his face and neck. When she released him, her gloves shimmered as if she'd crushed a handful of butterflies. Blood pulsed under his skin and the hazy scent of the sun-warmed ocean flooded his nose.

"What the Void is this shit?"

"Wraith Krust powder and whale oil," Daud said. "What we use to disappear." A ragged cloak appeared in Daud's hands, taken from the back of the chair Hawk used for his tales of Pandyssia hour. Billie caught it with one hand as Daud said, "And that is what's going to hide the rest of you. I want this extraction to be painless and easy. No one else has to die."

"You mean like the Duke's son?" Yes, it was stupid, but he couldn't resist. Daud let out another patient sigh and turned away. A heavy cloth flopped over his head, Billie's way of trying to shut him up. Wood and musty old linen replaced the scent of sand and waves, and brought along the neglect of years of being buried in a chest, forgotten in the darkness. The smell of something unloved, potent and sad. His vision returned when the hood eased back, the tattered threads hanging in his eyes.

From the top of the stairs, another series of chirps and trills that only Daud seemed to understand. "Two Warfares guarding the dungeon, three in the courtyard," Daud said. "And two patrolling the gates. The Grand Guard are still changing over. We have time. Seven minutes, maybe less. Is he ready?"

Billie shoved him out the cell door. Up until now this rescue had a surreal, dream-like quality: painted savages carrying off stolen treasure. Where was Arella and her entourage of mace-wielding Handmaidens? Why weren't Daud and Billie writhing before an orchestra of Holger devices? Arella had to have foreseen this in some manner - whether by dream or vision - but hadn't acted. Was she waiting for the right moment? Waiting for Daud to make a mistake, waiting for the Wraiths to be in the right place at the right time?

"Daud, you know Arella is —" he stopped when Billie swatted the back of his head.

"The High Oracle isn't a problem. She's having tea with the Duchess in the Palace arboretum," Daud said. "So much for divining the future. No change in guard. No change in rotation. And Handmaidens all accounted for. Our Most Holy must have missed her daily dose of nightshade. She's a fraud, Corvo, just like the rest."

"No, Arella's nothing—" Another swat. If she did that one more _fucking_ time…

Daud vanished up the stairwell, his voice settling like the dust he had disturbed. "Lurk, time to move."

Fingers clamped onto his neck like iron teeth. A sickening sway of space around him and he was at the top of the stairs. Then in the hallway, stone walls spinning around them. Then under the stone archway that rolled in an endless circle. His stomach gave a dangerous lurch. Transversing was considerably less pleasant as a passenger. His leg twinged in complaint, then started burning. Maybe they would have to carry him after all. Daud paused. A hand signal. _Hold_. A Warefare walked by, murmuring strictures. Maybe he should let his stomach go, use it as a distraction, or at the very least, get this Lurk bitch away from him.

The thought must have betrayed him somehow. The iron teeth bit down. "Give me an excuse, _Lord Protector_," Billie hissed in his ear. Daud made a growling noise and glared at her. _Stop it, Billie_, said the shake of Daud's head. The iron teeth eased their hold - but then dug in twice as deep, cutting off his air. "I would let you run, you bastard. Let the Overseers catch you and beat the living Void out of you. Let you bleed like you let our boys bleed. When we get back to the caves, you and I, we're going to have a discussion. We're going to settle things the Wraith way."

"_Lurk_." Daud snarled the word and Billie retreated — but not her hand. Beyond his low cowl, he had a sense of them locking gazes, measuring each other. So, there was a history there, and a turbulent one. It didn't take a Piero Joplin level of genius to guess that Billie Lurk had been a Whaler. No doubt she had been with Daud on those rooftops back at Dunwall Tower — she might have even been the one pinning him to the wall as Daud plunged his blade into Jessamine's stomach. And if that was true...

Yes, they would be having a discussion, and yes they would be settling things.

_His way._

"You finished?" Daud's tone demanded one answer, and Billie gave it with the same lethal chill. For several heartbeats, neither of his captors moved, and then a shrill squawk from a kingsparrow sent them transversing again, a dizzying, frantic, stop-and-go flight through the lower levels of the Palace, pass temples and prayer alters. And with every yank of motion, the knots at his wrists loosened a little more. Seems Billie needed a lesson in knot tying.

After the stench of his cell, the fragrant humid air drifting in through the unglazed windows seemed sweeter, lush with familiar scents of sea and earth. Little time to enjoy it though, as the outer gardens rushed into his vision in splotches of greenery and flowers. Palm leaves waved in front of his face, scratchy and moist. More chips and trills. _All clear._ A beautiful morning and no aristocrat strolling the gardens? No servant dallying before their shift? Desperation gnawed its way into his belly. One hand. Just one hand. _Do something, you idiot._ Knots slick with blood. Two fingers free. Then the rest. The outer gardens led to the main gates, but also the narrow servants entrance hidden along the high wall. And beyond that, Daud's cave and an uncertain fate. Void only knew when he would get another chance.

The pressure of air shifted. Another transversal beginning. One free bloody hand under his cloak and the pygmy palm tree caressing his cheek. A small and elegant trunk, but strong — stronger than Billie's now slackened grip on his neck. The iron teeth had weakened, finally. Cooperation did have its rewards.

Billie dashed forward — then _back_ with a crack of sound, whiplash taking her balance and surprised cry. She landed on her back, half his cloak still in her hands, torn edges flapping. Daud spun around, his wrist turning up, already reacting. A dart grazed his neck, leaving behind a little trail of fire and blood. Quick bastard, but he had proved back in Dunwall that he had been the faster one.

_Go, go, go, don_ _'t stop. _

His transversals were that of an drunken ox, one stumbling to pasture and hitting every fence post along the way. A stone wall almost collided with his nose. A row of fire lilies would have been breakfast had he not changed direction at the last second. Unpredictable paths. Keep Daud guessing. Make him work for it.

Through an archway, down the row, over the hedges. And a shadow behind, never wavering. He had dreamed something like this once, time dancing in slow motion and black eyes watching in delight. Sluggish colors matched his sluggish movements. How had his shadow not caught him? He paused against a wall. Sweat in his eyes, stinging. He shook and the ground swirled like water.

"Corvo, damn you!"

Another dart sang, and another transversal up and over the wall. He laughed, euphoria bubbling, playful and poisonous. Daud cursed somewhere to his left. Where was he going again? It all had been so clear a moment ago. And where was the woman? Billie…something. Ah, wait. He careened and launched himself down a long arched hall. Oil paintings and wall lamps and winding stairs. Inside the lower palace now…somewhere. The shadow had stopped following and that was fine. So much transversing, like a muscle overused. Never had it bothered him back in Dunwall. He must be getting old. Slick marble, cool and hard under his bare feet._ Be careful now, no transversing in the Palace_. He laughed again, like the boy he had been before the Verbena festival, before it all went wrong. Why were the walls so many colors? So garish and bright, like one of Delilah's paintings. Where was his shadow? The woman? What was her name again? Billie…_Lurk_. Yes, that was her name. Maybe she had broken her neck. His rats would like that. They would be hungry.

"Attano!"

Not Daud. A Warfare. Fresh from the bathhouse, hair still damp. Young, shoulders wide, mouth gaping like a startled bovine. Behind the Warfare, colors stopped spinning and decided to form the gilded archways of the Palace arboretum, the golden gates of the Cosmos itself. The Warfare snorted in panic, fumbling too long for his pistol. Off guard…_vulnerable_. Instinct shone in his clouded mind like a stray ray of sunlight. Hot. _Blinding. _

The Warfare was dead before he hit the ground.

A small shriek jerked his eyes from the bulging gaze of his latest victim, to meet another gaze of similar vacancy, this pair attached to a familiar woman in a mauve gown. The delicate layers of sea silk seemed to freeze with her, a floral teacup halfway to her parted lips and a clinking saucer underneath. Years had eroded some of her beauty, but what remained could still charm a man half her age. Nothing charming about her now, though. She gawked at him like a flustered old hen, her chair scraping against the stone with an unpleasant screech. She rose in a flourish of silk and alarm, her teacup and saucer shattering.

"Sit down, your grace." On the other side of the wrought metal table, clad in her usual attire of blood and shadow, Arella sipped her tea, her saucer and cup silent. A medium-sized box of polished wood shared a spot at her feet. Embellished symbols of the Everyman and three complex locks adorned the lid and body. Jessamine's heart whispered inside.

He made a noise like a wounded animal and moved toward her, hot tears welling. To hear her now, after all the horror and torture, to be within a hairbreadth of touching her again. It was like a prayer answered, a dying man's wish. Tears spilled over and he reached out, arm and hand shaking.

_Jessamine, Jessamine, _his thoughts cried_, can you hear me?_

"Even if you claimed it before I restrained you, even if you managed to unlock it without my keys, and even if you broke all those strong fingers prying it open — she would die before you held her again." Arella nibbled on a tart, the cream as soft as her voice. "This is a special box, one I had made specifically for _her_. There's a small pressure plate on the bottom, a spring razor." The innocence in her eyes, her voice. It was perverse. "Poor Jessamine. To be torn apart twice. Will you be that cruel to her?"

"What manner of hell _birthed _you, woman?" Red tinged his vision, a throbbing veil that matched the throbbing in his hand. How satisfying it would be to break this creature's neck, shake her until her eyes bled and that satisfying crack echoed through the Palace. His hands clenched, convulsive, already performing the deed.

Arella stood, a delicate hiss of metal against stone. Duchess Katrina sat mute in her chair like an over-dressed doll, arms stiff and folded. Eyes empty. A remote part of him murmured concern, but the Duchess didn't matter. Only Jessamine mattered. And then after Jessamine, killing Arella. And then Hawk, the Overseers, the Handmaidens — and then maybe Billie and Daud if they kept trying to leash him. The black-eyed bastard would love that wouldn't he?

His stomach clenched a warning, then dropped. He staggered and vomited. The Duchess covered her nose with an embroidered napkin and looked properly disgusted. Arella poured another cup of tea, humming what sounded like an old Serkonan folk song. What was the title? Hands on his knees, he coughed and spat. The red haze dissipated and a fog replaced it, one that muddled his thoughts and dimmed his anger. Son-of-a-bitch…Daud. One scratch and he was this addled? What kind of darts were those?

"Do you care?" Arella pushed the saucer toward him. A teacup full of sunset, a melting swirl of honey lazy on the bottom. "Drink, it will clear your head."

He didn't move. Oh now she wanted to be courteous? Fuck her. Fuck her and her damn freakish—

"I said…DRINK."

He lurched forward, groaning, compelled to obey by the sudden verbal blow to his head. The fog cleared, but it was not a blessing. Fear gripped him, shoved him forward. He crashed into the table, both he and it teetering, and the Duchess made a hasty retreat to a large palm tree, hands clasped to her chest and her blank wide eyes fixed on him.

Arella came close — not touching, thank the Cosmos, he couldn't bear that — but near enough to feel the unnatural heat radiating from her, the electric buzzing in his ears. This was her displeasure. A rebuke. But then the feeling eased and something akin to an apology attempted to sooth him. A nameless sensation joined Arella in stroking his arm. He jumped and shied away like a skittish horse. The tea…focus on the tea. He sipped cautiously. Bitter, but the honey helped. Her fingers found him again. No escape.

"Better?" Arella said, stroking down and up. _There, there, will you forgive me?_ Gentle. Dangerous.

"Yes." He sipped again. The Duchess had her palm tree to hide behind. He had his tea. Another nudge in his head. So disquieting. _What do you say?_ He stammered, mouth forming the words before they left his brain. "Thank you, Arella."

"You're very welcome, Corvo." But her pleased smile faded as she stared at something over his shoulder, her face darkening. Monsters clawed from their prison behind her eyes. And he was trapped there with them, held by something he had no words for, had no understanding of. "And when your head clears, I have a favor to ask of you. A small kindness to repay my own."

He should have left with Daud and Billie. They were the lesser of the two evils. Why hadn't he listened? If pride was a noose he would have hung himself multiple times.

A gravelly sigh somewhere to his right. Then another sigh as a blade unsheathed. The sounds of more blades followed. Seemed all the Wraiths were crashing the party.

"Corvo." It wasn't a question, but another apology. This time it came from Daud, but he didn't deserve it. He had really mucked things up this time. Jessamine had always been a weakness for him, a soft spot in his armor. Her voice and soul had long since melded to his own. She was as part of him as his own bones and blood. Once he had wanted Daud to suffer for her death, and anyone else associated - but hate was inconvenient. Right now, he needed allies. And it seemed Daud had finally realized that no, Arella wasn't a fraud like the rest, and yes, she was very very much a threat - and Daud had, despite his clever scheme falling through- come back for him. Was he wrong to assume this? Maybe.

Or perhaps there was a shred of honor left in them both.

"Take him if you can, Knife of Dunwall." Arella sat back down and poured herself another cup of tea. The Duchess tried to make herself one with the palm tree. From the pathways of the arboretum, Overseers emerged, masks grimacing and swords in hand. Warfares appeared on the upper walkway, Holger devices ready to play. And Hawk himself, the picture of piety and grace in his battle uniform, strode toward the table with a tight, triumphant smile.

Daud chuckled, "I'm really getting too old for this."

"Yes," Arella said and set her cup back on the saucer. "You are." She paused for effect, then flicked her wrist, the gesture as airy as her command.

_"Kill them all."_


	6. Tea Party Pt Two

He had one second to tip things in his favor — in Daud's favor, actually. Because once this was over, he'd be at the mercy of the winner. And Arella — now like a statue of the Void suspended in the act of turning toward him, her slitted gaze narrowing further, her lips parting, mouthing his name — would not be gentle.

No small feat, stopping time.

It was one of the hardest of his abilities to pull off — and according to Daud after one drunken evening, and after declaring the first of many uneasy truces between them — no Marked soul had come close to mastering it_ completely_. Nothing burns through mana like halting the fabric of the universe, stretching a tiny, insignificant moment into several more, and all the while time and space grinding its collective jaws in protest.

Only the Outsider wielded this power without effort. Like Arella flicking her wrist and demanding death, the Outsider could make the world pause with a simple gesture. A moment on the cusp of itself, like the sands of an hourglass forever falling. For the Outsider, the gears wouldn't squeal. Sparks wouldn't fly. The Cosmos would acquiesce for as long as it could...but not forever.

Not even a creature of the Void could wield a wrench that big.

That being said, he was only human. And exhausted. And more than a little nauseous. The poison from Daud's dart still thrummed in his blood. His stomach was a knot of whirling moths. Wings of bone and teeth. Jessamine lay mere inches away, the wood and iron holding her prisoner easily destroyed, but without the keys she'd be ripped to shreds. Ironic, that. He had used the same traps on others, congratulating himself on his clever applications. To be held hostage by another with that same cunning...it was irony on a cosmic scale, the universe saying _fuck you, Corvo._

So a choice now in the world of graying flowers, petals caught in the air, of many hands clenching cranks, unable to move until he said play — of the dark blur to his right, sword already deep in its first victim — Daud defying the seizing of time itself. Billie had the same immunity, her dagger thrusting with slow, fluid grace though the soft underside of an Overseer's chin.

Draw a line in the sand. He could always erase it later.

_…Tick_

Arella wheeled like a sculpture on a turntable, bit by bit, red hair fanning in a pendulum swing.

_Tock__…_

His fingers tangled in that wave, an echo of heavy silk in his palm, like a dream or memory. And there was resistance, as if time wouldn't allow both speeds to coalesce.

_…Tick_

Mark blinding white, Daud sliced his way though the line of Warfares, not cutting throats or disemboweling, but taking fingers, hands, even arms - severing anything attached to a Holger device. Less merciful, and mouth twisting in a fierce grimace, Billie shot something snakelike and black from her palms that gorged out eyes and tore into throats. Her mark shone on her dark skin, glimpsed though smoky tendrils of her lethal serpent.

_Tock__…_

The rest of Daud's Wraiths moved in a sluggish dance, like the ballroom waltz in his dream, taking down anyone within reach. Spatters of blood arced through the air like freezing ink.

_...Tic__—_

An unbearable vibration his bones as time shifted forward and the world popped into focus. Arella sucked in her breath and went still in his grip. Her pulse fluttered against his palm, soft and delicate like a trapped butterfly.

Late to the party, Overseers drew their pistols and aimed at Wraiths— who in turn, released a volley of darts from their wristbows. Sleeping bodies fell to join the pile of dead, screaming, or bleeding. In his side vision, Hawk stumbled, but stayed upright, his gun aimed at the Wraiths surrounding him. Shots fired and hit nothing. But then on the third level, Handmaidens burst through the doors of the Duke's private balcony, maces raised and swinging. The two Wraiths who transversed to greet them went down in the frenzy. One maiden shrieked as she tumbled to her death, impaled as she crashed through a trellis woven with firelilies. Hawk fired again. A pained cry of another Wraith. The others fell back and vanished to new positions.

"Corvo," Arella gasped his name, making him remember he had his hands around her neck. Her eyes showed no fear, but that wasn't surprising. She had seen this already hadn't she? All of it. Did he even have control anymore? They were all puppets dancing for her: Hawk, the Overseers,— even the Abbey itself. And now Daud and his Wraiths. But there were moments that slipped through the cracks. Futures she couldn't find. Hawk had surprised her once —

"But I know you, Corvo." She leaned into his touch like a cat. "You hold me now because I wish it."

His hand convulsed. _Poisonous thing. Let it go._ Her pleased sigh snagged when he tightened his grip and yanked her forward. On her tiptoes, straining, her cheeks flushing crimson. "I hold you because you have something I want," he growled into her face. "And you have something of mine. I'm not leaving without her."

"You will, or you won't", she wheezed out. He loosed his grip and she rasped between fits of coughing, "Two paths. Which one? All depends on him," her eyes flew in Daud's direction as he flanked Hawk and what was left of the Overseers. Hawk glowered over his fallen Warfares, those at his feet moaning in agony and clutching at the missing parts of themselves. Blood flecked Hawk's spectacles, ran down one cheek, and soaked the lapel of his fancy military coat. "But he's going to die," she said. "I've seen it. All paths converge. All lead to one…destination. Our fate. You can't fight it."

The buzzing started in his head, like an arc pylon overloading. All the hairs on his arms rose. His fingers seemed glued to her skin. The power she threw at him was alive, a spitting, hissing thing. His Void energy pushed back in defense, scrambling for purchase. The buzzing grew deafening. _Let her go, let her go_…but his hands remained fastened around her throat on their own accord. Her image blurred, then blacked like burning paper. He held something horrifying, a nightmare of maw, teeth, and writhing tendrils. Pieces of himself were flying away, his soul like leaves, thin and crumbling. He was a husk of himself, his vitality draining, being _siphoned_…

Then she sagged against him like dead weight, her eyes rolling back and body twitching. A dart protruded from her shoulder. He wobbled on his feet, her body unbalancing him.

"Didn't see that coming, did you?" Daud caught him before he fell, arm under arm, steady and firm. "Easy, Corvo. Take a minute. I've seen hagfish less green than you."

Arella flopped to the ground, eliciting a chorus of gasps and cries from some of the Handmaidens that had made their way to Hawk. Some surged forward, but halted when Hawk barked _"hold"_. The few standing Overseers whispered strictures in a hushed, frantic chant. Shadows moved on the third level. The limp arm of a Handmaiden twitched over the railing. More bodies littered the stairs, gender and station unrecognizable.

"Don't worry sisters, you can coo and fuss over her when we leave," Daud said and beckoned for his people with his free hand. The other gave a not-so-gentle squeeze around his nape that said, _You're not getting away from me again._

"Why didn't you kill the bitch?" Billie wiped her blade on a fallen Overseer's jacket and sheathed it. What was left of the Holger devices crunched under her boots. The otherworldly effect of her cloak and paint had diminished somewhat, but she moved like a barbarian queen as she stepped over her victims, ending those that dared clutch at her cloak, or moaned too loudly. The pistol in Hawk's hands followed her. Spectacles hid his eyes. Billie passed a palm tree, and behind it, the Duchess cringed like a paralyzed rabbit. Only a hint of sea silk and the winking light of her jeweled hairpins gave her away. So that's where she'd run off too. They weren't on the best of terms (traitorous bitch), but he didn't wish her ill. Not really. Though it might be better if one of the Wraiths darted her. For her own safety of course.

"The last thing we need is a martyr," Daud said to Billie. "That's why our dear High Overseer is still alive."

"And that is one of your many mistakes, Knife of Dunwall." Hawk's accent grated his words into razor-like shards, and the pistol in his hand moved from Billie to Daud. And now since he was a human shield, that damn barrel was pointed at _his_ face. Gloved fingers slid from his nape over his scalp, an intimate gesture that sent a pleasing, but unwanted shiver down his shoulder blades. Then his head tipped back as Daud tugged a warning: _Don__'t even think about moving. _

"Yes, yes it is," Daud said. The hands deep in his hair gave him a little shake. _Trust me, Corvo, _the touch said. "And one of yours is lying here on the stone. Pretty though, for a crazy witch. I've had my fair share of dealing with her kind. Other Marked who didn't like competition, the Brigmore witches. I suggest you put this one out of her misery before, well...she tries boiling someone in a stew — or Cosmos forbid if she takes up _painting._" The fingers on his skull drummed thoughtfully and then settled. A lock of Arella's red hair tickled his toe. Outsider's eyes, she made his skin crawl. What he wouldn't do for a Piero's Remedy right now. Transverse away from her and Daud, grab Jessamine and get as far away from this shithole as he could. Wonder what Pandyssia looked like this time of year?

"You are beneath her. All of us are. She is holy, incorruptible." Hawk said with a peculiar smile. The mirror light of his glasses dimmed and behind them, the eyes of a hunter. Did he imagine them all as tygers? Spectral tygers that vanished and reappeared as if on the fringes of the Void. Hawk was surrounded, but didn't seem to care. If Daud would remove his damn hand he could check behind them, see what had the High Overseer suddenly so confident. Billie had eyes on Hawk as well, but she toyed with the leaves of the palm tree the Duchess cowered behind. She was either ignoring the Duchess or didn't see her. It was hard to fathom Daud's second in command not noticing the Duchess, but if Billie didn't see her, what else would she miss?

"She's an animal you need to put down," Daud said the word _down_ as if contemplating doing the deed himself. "Because when she chews through your leash, she's going right for your throat."

"Perhaps you should worry about yourself, my dull blade. What the Cosmos has planned for you is considerably worse that whatever fate you've imagined for me."

"I think your angry Cosmos has better things to do than plot the demise of a humble nuisance such as myself. No, High Overseer, I'm your personal thorn."

"Ah, well…how unfortunate then for you." The hunter eyes behind the glasses flashed. "For any thorn in my side, I swiftly pluck out."

The Overseer's music played then, a lone, whining shrill high above their heads. Everyone that wielded the Void cried out in pain. He managed to stay on his feet despite the needles in his skull. It was more annoying than debilitating; he'd suffered worse in his cell. The Wraiths however, did not have his endurance. All dropped like birds shot from the air, the consequences of being bound to Daud's magic. Billie curled into a ball, black smoke sputtering at her palms. Even Daud fell to one knee, head in his hands and gritting his teeth.

Through the blue haze of music-tinged air, Hawk aimed his pistol and fired.

The bullet spiraled toward them, almost beautiful in the ripples it created, the air pierced and bleeding around it. No need to predict its trajectory. The destination was between Daud's eyes.

Mana wrenched itself free, some hidden limb that tore and bled. Calling it forth was like a wolf tearing its leg from a trap. Daud grunted, the transversal taking them both by surprise. This instinct should be dead: he took lives, not saved them. And this sudden heroism would cost him. Where the music tainted, magic couldn't exist. The Void couldn't defy the Cosmos. That was the unspoken law. But somehow, he had transversed, his magic shoved through a space of barbed-wire and ice.

Charging head-first into a wall of light would have been kinder.

He collapsed next to a stunned Daud and retched into a patch of white jasmine. Hawk called from beyond the masonry wall that shielded them: "You are full of surprises, little crow. But why bother saving him? He'll betray you in the end. His kind always do. It's the root of their evil, that creature…this Outsider. You know it, Corvo. It's why you've tried to free yourself."

He didn't have the strength to respond. The music still clunked and clanged away. The leaves and flowers shook with it, but they were cool and wet as they kissed his forehead. The source of the song, the third story balcony. The Duke's private garden. He pointed toward it, his head still in the flower's embrace. Daud grunted again, _Yes, I know,_ and then his shadow disappeared. The sounds that followed next came under a wave of distorted music: A puff of air as Hawk's pistol fired. An enraged cry that came across as a smothered curse. And then a weak groan. Feminine shrieks rose like a flock of distant gulls, Daud barking orders to any coherent Wraith. Billie's voice answered, a trembling note that the music devoured. More shouts that could be cries of victory or dying screams, and then—

Silence.

"Thank you," he whispered and rolled onto his side.

Daud's shadow returned and it spoke with quiet fury: "Six of my men dead. I should have just knocked you out."

"Add it to Hawk's list of your mistakes," he said.

"Get up."

"That dart you shot me with and my stomach are not getting along." And maybe that last transversal really kicked his ass, but why split hairs?

"It barely grazed you."

"I don't know what kind of poison you used but it had me smelling colors."

"Corvo, I'm not asking again. More guards will be coming."

He rolled himself onto his stomach and attempted to rise, using the masonry wall as support. "You can say 'thank you Corvo for saving my life'".

"Thank you, Corvo, for running off like an idiot, and for getting my men killed. You lied to me. You gave your word you would cooperate."

"Well that's your own damn fault for trusting me isn't it?"

Daud's punch knocked him over, his lip receiving the worst of it. It instantly split and bled. Alright, he deserved that and probably more, but Daud couldn't argue the logic. "The whole reason I'm even here is your fault," he said. "So you lost men. So what?" He spat the copper tang out of his mouth and into his hand. Nothing white rolling around in the red. Good, he still had all his teeth "I lost more than that back in Dunwall."

"Really? You want to do this again? Right here?"

"Daud, we have to go. The live ones are waking up." Billie's hood had torn sometime in the last battle, frayed threads sticking to the blood on her face. And she had the gall to glare at him. At _him._ As if all this was his doing!

"I didn't ask for your fucking help." He got to his feet, and whatever was in his eyes made the marks on Daud's and Billie's hands glow. "I didn't ask to be held and tortured — and I'm not talking about just this past week. I'm talking about Coldridge prison. Months of being bullied, starved and beaten. Months of Hiram and Campell shoving a confession of _your crime_ in my face. This is _my _fault? Not a single soul would be here if it wasn't for you! You killed Jessamine. You committed regicide for coin! You and your fucking sheep Whalers! And not only did you ruin Jessamine's life, or my life — but you destroyed a child's life. Emily is gone because of the events _you_ set into motion. The city of Dunwall is gone because of your greed and corruption. Jessamine wasn't there to keep the balance of power. She couldn't fix what you broke. You destroyed Dunwall!"

"The plague destroyed Dunwall you fool!" Billie launched herself at him, rage in her eyes. Daud hauled her back by the flapping hood of her cloak.

"If you're going to throw a tantrum, Corvo, do it when we don't have Overseers and the Grand Guard breathing down our necks." To Billie he said: "And you know better. You two start flinging magic at each other and you risk more than yourselves. The Duchess just fled the garden. She's going to scream at the first servant or noble she finds to ring the alarm bells. More men are coming and we don't have the darts or mana to deal with them."

A young Wraith appeared at Daud's side as if summoned by his words, his entire face painted red, a black spiral circling his right cheek like the spiral on Piero's Door to Nowhere. The paint had smeared away at the chin and neck, revealing smooth tanned skin. "Master Daud, we've secured the servant's entrance. Most of us are out of sleep darts. Two groundskeepers tried to enter the gardens and we had to be…creative in putting them down. We don't have much time. Duchess Katrina—"

"Yes I know. Any minute those damn bells. Corvo, you can kick my ass all you want back at the catacombs, but we have to move. Now."

And there went the line in the sand. "Get out of here, I can make my own way," he said and started toward the center of the garden. To the Void with them all. Whatever camaraderie the poison had stirred in the beginning of all this was evaporating with every step. Nothing like a tirade to remind you of what's important. And what lay under the tea table meant everything.

"Daud?" Billie sounded ready for launch number two.

"Lurk, cover the north entrance. Watch for more servants. Anyone who wants to smell the damn roses, put them to sleep…nicely."

"You need to put him to sleep, permanently." Billie said, but from a distance, already obeying even though she clearly was not happy about it. Such loyalty. Either she owed Daud a very large favor, or she was fucking him. The latter was most likely, but what did he know?

Six Wraiths dead, but no bodies in sight. Spirited away, no doubt, and those that survived stood guard over the slain or sleeping — the more vocal injured quieted by a helpful dose of sleeping poison. Some of them would bleed out and pass in their dreams, a peaceful death. One Jessamine never experienced.

"You stubborn son-of-a-bitch," Daud said behind him, ever the stealthy assassin: not even a whisper of footsteps on the cobblestone path. "After everything, you're going to pull this?"

"I'm not leaving without Jessamine."

"She's dead, Corvo." Daud caught up to him, exasperation roughening his voice. "Remember? I ruined your life and destroyed the world."

"No, just Dunwall. Just me." He paused. Suppose it wouldn't hurt confiding in Daud. The reaction might be interesting. "And she's alive. He…gave her back."

"Who? Oh…right. Him. Of course." Then with dread, the realization kicking in. "Wait, the Empress is _in_ the box?"

He didn't answer. Let Daud chew on that for a while. Under a pergola dripping with climbing roses of vermilion and ivory, sat the tea table with its scattered, but miraculously unbroken glassware. Arella lay like an abandoned doll next to it with Hawk slumped over her chest in an undignified heap, shielding her even in unconsciousness. How romantic. Hawk's spectacles dangled over his nose, and though the High Overseer didn't deserve the consideration, he pushed them back in place.

Something must have passed over his face as he studied the pair because Daud said, "Alive. We leave them alive. This city is already hunting witches. I'm not starting a war over these two mudlarks."

"And that's another mistake for you, Daud. Just like that day at Dunwall Tower. You should have killed me after you killed her. It would have been simpler for everyone." Then, a thought: "Why hasn't Katrina rung the bells?"

"I don't know, but that's more time wasted that we didn't have in the first place."

"Not my problem. And I didn't ask for your help. Go back to your fucking caves and leave me alone."

"With your box? Whatever's in there isn't worth it," Daud uttered a long, tired sigh. He rubbed the bridge of his nose again. No sign of skin yet. The paint must be extra thick there. "That black-eyed bastard. This is low, even for him. Giving you this…hope. To what end? Why torture you like this?"

"It was a gift," he whispered, bending down. "Something, I think, to ease the pain. Maybe…" He let the thought die and reached for the ornate box under the table. Heavy, glazed and old. Three locks of tarnished gold and on closer inspection, what appeared to be intricate runes carved into the sides. Jessamine's heart called to him from within, words in his soul, not his ears.

_Corvo__…_

"I'm here. I found you. I'll get you out somehow." He traced the runes, the locks. Arella must have the keys hidden somewhere. Not on her person, no, not if she knew he would be here. In her quarters, perhaps in a secret drawer or safe.

"How long has the Empress been like this?" Daud stared at the box, stricken, as if picturing a horror inside. He wouldn't be wrong. A beautiful, proud ruler reduced to a piece of meat and gears. It was insulting to the woman she once was.

"Since the beginning, after the Outsider chose me. She tells me secrets." The runes seemed familiar, like something he had read in a book, or seen in a dream. "She knows about the man who took you away when you were a boy. And in the flooded District, when I was about to kill you, she…balked at the thought of forgiving you. I think you made her aware. You made her remember. She said there was no turning back from the path you had chosen."

Daud let out a shaky sigh and lowered his eyes. The bridge of his nose flaked. Now the skin showed, pale, exposed. Wraiths transversed around them, mobilizing to defend all entrance points. "I…I never seen this thing — _her _— that you have," Daud said. "When did you use it?"

"No one could see it before. It's her heart," he said softly. "Flesh and metal, molded by the Outsider's hands, and I suspect…Piero's as well. When Piero was sleeping. Dreaming. I thought she would be with me until the end. She was safe until the High Oracle got ahold of her." Arella made a kittenish noise as if she'd heard him, and he flinched, his hands spasming around the box.

Something clicked then deep inside. A brassy whirling of some sort of mechanism, then a low hum that increased in speed and strength each passing second. "Jessamine?" Her reply was dead air, and the sense of fear. But whose fear? His and hers, they tangled in a knot. The runes started to radiate a bluish white light — as if coated with whale oil. The humming burrowed straight to his bones, all sensation leaving his fingers.

A part of him knew what this was, what it meant. And that part sent all rational thoughts into the Void.

"Daud, I need the keys!"

"No, Corvo, let it go." Daud came toward him slowly, arms outstretched, placating and threatening at the same time. "Put it down. Now."

He clung to the box, backing away, then ducked when Daud's wristbow caught the light. A dart hissed by his ear. Must have saved a few especially for him. How many more in that contraption? "Stop it, Daud! I can't leave her here. She's all I have left."

"Drop it, damn you! It's booby-trapped!"

Another flicker of movement to the side of him. Another Wraith. Fuck. A sting in his arm. Damn them. All of them. The box slipped, but he grappled with it, pleading, begging. "NO. It'll open. The keys! They're in her room somewhere. Have one of your Wraiths—"

The box exploded.

Coils of razor wire spun free in shining arcs. Lines of wet fire burned his hands, his arms, his eyes. His mouth filled with blood. Heat poured down the left side of his face, heart thudding in a frenzied tempo. Flames soaked his body. Everything was so red and hot and his legs didn't know how to work anymore. Shouts from somewhere. Daud called his name. Then something soft underneath him. Earthy and cool. The fire released him into a lukewarm sea. Floating there in the nothingness…it was almost peaceful. But this peace came with the sense of disquiet. A nagging reminder that something terrible had happened. This was wrong. He wasn't where he should be. Where was Jessamine? He had to get the keys.

_Shh, it doesn__'t matter anymore._ Jessamine stroked his face. Her dark hair fell over her naked shoulders in tumbled waves. A rare sight. He brought a handful to his lips. Sandalwood and honeysuckle. They were in a timeless place, after their eyes had first met at the Fugue Feast, when they saw beyond the masks. Soul calling to soul. Entwined on her bed, drapery fluttering like fins of an exotic fish caught in the current. The faded lavender sky carried away parts of the walls, the marble floor. And in the hazy white pool of light beneath their crumbling island, the whales were singing.

She was smoke in his arms and ash on his lips. His thoughts caressed hers, soul speaking to soul.

_You made me happy, Corvo. I will always remember that._

_But what I did, what I couldn__'t do. Emily. I let our daughter die._

_She frightened you, and you frightened her. But I know you never meant to hurt her._

_But I did, and she fell. I failed._

_She forgives you._

_And do you forgive me?_

_Always._

_Then why does this feel like goodbye?_

_Because you can__'t come with us._

_Am I not allowed? Is..is this punishment?_

_Love is never a sin, Corvo._

_Then why can__'t I be with you?_

_You are no longer mine._

_What are you saying? I__'m always yours._

_No__…you belong to him_ _now._

_Jessamine!_

_What__'s to come…I'm so sorry._

_Stay then, stay and tell me._

_I cannot._

_Stay for me, please. I__'m alone!_

_Love again, Corvo. For me._

A knelling in the Void drowned out the whale song, the clapper striking hard and true. But the bells of Karnaca didn't ring.

They howled.

* * *

I'll probably editing this later on after NaNoWriMo :)


End file.
